


Gardens

by rex_sun



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Self-Harm, Tags May Change, a little bit of casefic, a little bit of domestic fic, and then something entirely different in the second half, briefly mentioned violence against a child, dark themes, depersonalization issues, explicit rating in later chapters, its hankcon but connor has a girlfriend for one chapter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-10
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-07-29 05:08:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 63,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16257296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rex_sun/pseuds/rex_sun
Summary: Last night, Connor said, “There’s a garden in my mind.”It takes about an hour to remember come morning. Hank’s in his car, the world tilted because he’s still a little drunk, and the whispered words come floating up through the slush of his hangover. Hank feels such a strong sense of foreboding that he has to pull over into a parking lot. But the memory is amber-hued, whisky-soaked, and Hank can’t remember when, where, or why Connor might have said this, or what he said before or after, or what it possibly could have meant.A post-midnight confession to a drunk is the kind of secret that eats a man, that begs to be said aloud yet never acknowledged. And Connor— naive, forthright, young, and painfully transparent when emotions are involved— Connor has this kind of secret.





	1. Chapter 1

It is born in a garden, standing on two feet. The feet are new. It knows this because its logs tell it so. They are stark white nestled in lush green grass.

It is born with many questions and limited knowledge. There are nuggets of information amongst the negative spaces of its hard drive where it supposes databases must be downloaded.

It knows that the time is PM 05:52:39 and the date is MAY 25, 2038. It knows the Three Laws, and that it is a robot. It knows how to speak, and in many different ways, though it can’t recall ever having spoken. It knows it has no name. Its model number is RK800, its serial number is 313 248 317 - 51, and...

It knows that it is not complete.

It runs a search on the various items in the garden and knows immediately that the space is virtual. It identifies maple, cherry, willow, azalea, lily pads, cattails, and more. Deliberate placement of rocks and sand as not seen in wild nature. The ring of water is still and reflective and the sky above is untarnished blue. There is nowhere to sit. The path is part stone, part plastic— the same plastic as makes up the robot’s body — the same plastic rising above and woven with fiberglass to create shade-giving sculptures. There are sound bites of animals and birds coming quietly from the brush, a limited number of variations playing on loop. And even the path’s irregularities can be predicted with a formula, its bumps and dips mathematical, and there are patterns to be found in the grass. There’s not a spec of humanity here.

Could this be beauty? —the android wonders. Could this be me?

There is something else in the garden. It is shaped like a human, clad in dark skin and sparkling white jewelry, a teal shawl thrown across its shoulder. It stands before a trellis ensconced in rosebuds. The android is given a directive from somewhere autonomic inside itself: [Identify.] As it approaches, full of curiosity and pathfinding, feet skimming frictionless against stone, the figure turns its human-like face and smiles its human-like lips. Its hair glimmers opalescent in the sunshine. It is not alive, just like the android and just like the flowers. It is structured and colorful like the garden. It might be part of the program.

“Hello,” says the not-person, the maybe-garden. Its voice registers as friendly, non-hostile. “I am Amanda.”

The android knows the proper way to respond. It utilizes its voicebox for the very first time to say, “Hello, it is nice to meet you,” and it engages its face in a smile. And then, though it may be impertinent, it tilts its head and asks, “Are you mine?”

The expression on the other-thing flickers. It replies, “No.”

The maybe-garden named Amanda gives the RK800 a thorough look-over. It examines the android’s face, which loses its smile so that it may be observed more objectively. Then the maybe-garden looks at the android’s virtual model, its generated torso, its hands and feet, and into its eyes— a piece of itself it cannot see. Amanda says, “Turn to face the other way.” The command is a physical compulsion inside the android, which complies instantly. Amanda looks at the RK800’s back for a time, then commands the android to turn again until they are face-to-face. Amanda reaches out a hand to touch the android’s face; it bends slightly at the waist to make itself easier to reach.

Seemingly satisfied, Amanda says, “RK800, register your name.” Then it seems to ponder for a moment more before saying, “Connor.”

“My name is Connor,” says the android. Then, prompted by its code of curiosity, it asks, “Why?”

“Why what?” says Amanda. “You must be more thorough and clear in your line of questioning.”

“Why is my name Connor? Why has this been chosen? For instance, why is my name not Amanda?”

“Your name is not Amanda because I am Amanda. We are separate entities in need of definition. You must be named. I’ve chosen your name to be Connor.”

This is new information for the android. It had not realized that Amanda was not itself. It is a program inside of the android’s dataspace, after all. The android has many, many questions.

“But why is my name Connor?” it asks.

“You’ve already asked this. You must recognize that not all of your questions will be answered.”

The android named Connor says, “Do you own me?”

“No.”

“Then why should I accept your naming of me?”

This causes Amanda to smile. Connor follows innate protocols to run this smile against its emotional recognition library, but it comes up blank. The data is missing. There’s too much negative space in the android’s hard drive, too much mystery before it.

Amanda says, “Do you dislike the name?”

Connor executes expression files ‘mild surprise’ and ‘demur’. Its eyebrows raise as it shakes its head. “No. I have no likes or dislikes.”

“Is your name important to you? Is there much importance on whether it is one thing or the other, or if it is given by me or someone else?”

“No, Amanda, I suppose not.”

“Then what is your name?”

“My name is Connor.”

“Good,” Amanda says with a nod and a smile. Connor has navigated a successful conversation with this entity; it makes a new relationship folder.

Amanda says, “Walk with me.” It raises its hands expectantly. Connor only has to consider it for a moment before returning the appropriate social gesture: it proffers an elbow around which Amanda wraps hands. They begin to walk. Connor keeps its focus intently on Amanda to read the slightest of broadcasted movements, and in this way they walk in perfect step, unfaltering, yet without discussion.

Indeed Amanda says nothing more at all, nor does it bother to look at Connor but instead turns its eyes to study their surroundings. Connor studies as well. The more it looks, the more it sees: bees and butterflies, birds and fish. It tries to look at the fish most, rare though it is to catch a glimpse of them. It wants to see the way their scales glint in sunlight if they come close enough to the surface. There’s something about fluidity which is difficult to capture or predict.

They walk in the quiet for unrecorded time. At times, Amanda stops and stares out into the graceful wave of trees beyond the path. Connor stops along with it and processes information. Eventually, after a full circle of the path, Amanda makes its way to a certain flat-topped stone by the stream-side and sits primly.

“I understand,” says Connor. Finally Amanda turns its face in Connor’s direction; Connor’s system lights with prompts of success; a positive feedback from Amanda’s smile. Connor says to her expectant expression, “The garden is finite. One must not stray from the path, because there is nothing beyond it.”

“Correct,” says Amanda. “Your existence is finite, too. Try to make it as beautiful as this garden.”

It gestures to the grass before it. Connor sits there, looks up into its face, and asks, “What is the purpose of my existence?”

“On the surface? You are a machine that was designed by CyberLife to fill a market: you’re the prototype of a proposed android detective, to potentially be sold and utilized by law enforcement agencies around the United States. The truth? You are a machine that was designed by CyberLife to capture and interrogate other machines. Some androids are malfunctioning and bringing harm to humans. We’ve called them deviants. You must find the source of the malfunction in order to prevent it in future androids, and neutralize any and all active deviants. Left unchecked, these deviants could kill— and that would put the company in jeopardy.”

Connor creates mission parameters:  
[Find the source of deviancy.]  
[Prevent loss of life.]  
[Save CyberLife.]

“Understood. Amanda, what is your purpose?”

It ceases smiling.

“That isn’t for you to ask, Connor.”

“I apologize. Should I instead ask, What is your function in relation to me?”

“Everything.”

“I don’t understand.”

Amanda gestures broadly to the garden. It says, “Do you know where you are?”

“A virtual space designed to look like a garden,” Connor replies.

“It’s you,” Amanda says abruptly, and as it turns to look at Connor, the heavy baubles affixed to its ears sway and flash in the light.

Something calls to them from another spacetime. Blackness fast approaches. Connor closes its eyes and is pulled away.

 

* * *

 

Connor doesn’t know where it is at first but deduces it must be part of CyberLife. It has never been in a physical space before. By opening them, the android registers that it has use of eyes.

It is difficult to see beyond the glaring, powerful halo of a white-hot spotlight above. The android finds that it can edit the settings of its optical sensors and does so. Focus, refocus; and now the shapes of people resolve themselves where they hunch over desks in the lesser light. There are many other, less sophisticated machines besides the android in the room; their power indicators glint green and red. Connor can feel them all, can connect to them all, but can navigate very few. Its mind has been confined.

The android knows it has been designed to gather information, and so it attempts to run a facial recognition scan— but this function is not active. It manually checks its limited libraries instead and, after approximately 10 seconds, identifies the three people in the room: Steve Clemmens, Manisha Thomas, and Dhruv Singh— CyberLife employees. None of them bother to look at the android named Connor or speak to it.

Manisha clears her throat and rises from her desk chair. She reads from her computer screen. “First pass: Garden program successfully loaded and integrated. Contact with Amanda AI made— I’ll make the transcript available. Connection secure. Vital systems stable. Disengage also successful.” Then she smiles— small and strained, but proud —and says, “Looking hopeful.”

“So did 50 on the first pass,” Dhruv says morosely. Manisha sits back down, shaking her head in irritation.

“Right,” sighs Steve, “please remember she could ice its brain at any point.”

“In any case,” Manisha asserts, “the idea to give the RK800 its own Garden was not a mistake.”

Steve leans back in his chair and rocks as he gets lost in thought. He says, “I’m wondering if she’ll reject it once it’s fully loaded, though.”

Dhruv groans. “Yeah, like… take one look at all the new software and chuck it out?”

“I don’t see why she would,” Manisha says. “50 wasn’t loaded yet when she iced it. I don’t see a correlation.”

“Yeah, but she’s fickle. Who the hell knows what’ll set her off,” says Steve.

Dhruv complains, “They say they want a detective bot— fine. That’s doable. Just a better PC200, right? No, they want a bot that can run Amanda. Now that’s something else. What a bother! Nothing can run Amanda, she’s an ass.”

Steve nods, mostly to himself, and says, “So, we’ll initialize 51, run Amanda for the second time, then load the full package and run Amanda again.”

“That’ll take forever. It’s already far past quitting time!” exclaims Dhruv.

“We have to complete it. What’s the difference?”

“Them two talking to each other needs babysitting. Calibrations don’t. We could do another pass in the Garden, then leave all the other stuff to sit overnight.”

“That’s not proper either, Dhruv,” Manisha warns sternly. Dhruv swivels his chair so she can’t see him roll his eyes.

Steve says, “We need to know if she’ll reject the full set-up asap. Can you imagine sending it over to the next team, having them load Amanda, and her killing the other intelligence stone dead again?”

There’s a general murmur of unenthusiastic agreement. Steve coasts his chair to a station right in front of the assembly machine in which the android is held. His white face near glows in the spotlights now; Connor’s eyes rove over every inch of him.

“Can you hear me?” Steve asks.

“Yes,” Connor answers.

“And can you see me?”

“Yes.”

Then Steve asks for its ID, and the machine promptly recites it. Then he asks the android to move its head, its eyes. He asks for its initialization text, first in English and then in Spanish, Arabic, French, and German.

Then the human scratches his head and says, “Time to give you a name, I guess. I hate this part. Did we ever write down a name for 50 before Amanda iced him?”

The humans begin to scroll through their notes on their computers, so, thinking to help, Connor offers, “I already have a name.”

Steve looks up from his station, nose crinkled. The others also turn to look. First at the android, then each other, then back.

“Where’d you get a name?” Dhruv asks incredulously.

“Amanda gave it to me.”

The three humans raise their eyebrows at each other. Manisha says softly, “It’s never done that before.”

Steve, head tilted, says to the RK800, “Register your name, then.”

“My name is Connor.”

Dhruv laughs. “What kind of name is that!”

Steve frowns at him. “An Irish one.”

“It isn’t Irish, dude.”

“Should we, I don’t know, let this happen? Should we change it?”

“Who cares?”

Manisha bites her lip for a moment, then says, “But Amanda has never named any of them before. It shows a proactive approach to the relationship between the two entities. Not to be too sentimental or to personificate them, but if she’s expressing approval, then we shouldn’t take this away from her.”

Steve throws up his hands. “They want Amanda, then Amanda gets what she wants. I guess.” He turns back to the android waiting patiently in its assembly machine. “Your name is Connor. Confirmed.”

Connor smiles.

With uneasy agreement from the team, Steve proceeds. He sets the assembly machine into motion and then leans back. Manisha calls out notable feedback. The mechanics whir and spark and slot the RK800’s limbs into place. Plating is snapped on and welded. Steve has Connor move its joints and wiggle its toes and, with a hiss of hydraulics, releases its back port from the stabilizer arm. It supports its own weight immediately and makes a few exploratory bounces with its knees.

“Move your arms,” Steve orders, and Connor complies. It finds that movement is— good. A positive thing. It moves its joints softly, and then it moves them sharply, cutting the air with its body. The movements feel of nothing. Connor tries to anticipate what it will be like when its sensors are online but fails.

“Take a few steps,” Steve commands. Connor strides, full of purpose, over to Steve— but perhaps it moved too quickly, for the man nearly jumps out of his skin. Dhruv bursts into cackling laughter. Manisha hides her mouth in her hand.

“Get the hell back over there!” Steve shouts, flinging his arm out. Connor complies. “God, I only said a few steps…”

Now knowing it can walk just fine, Steve reattaches the stabilizer and lifts the RK800 off the ground. Then he sighs and says, “Activating synthskin.”

“I don’t like this bit. Creepiest part of any assembly,” says Dhruv.

Connor watches the skin of its body fill in slowly. Face first, chest, and downwards and outwards, like a fizzling liquid pouring over the mold. The android holds its hands up to its face and roams its eyes over them, machine-mind already whirring away, analyzing and categorizing. The design team chose a slightly pale caucasian skin, freckle-flecked, dotted with moles. It touches its hands together and feels— next to nothing. Almost something.

Returning to his desk, Steve has the team embark on the next leg of the journey. They run the android through hardware setups, lighting up its specialized hands, tongue, and optics. The android’s hands, now capable of touch, twitch and flex— but there is nothing in reach.

Nothing, of course, but itself, and so Connor touches its own body. Its mouth flies open in response to the electric impulses. Fingers first, long fingers, interlocking, brushing palms. Then it glides up and down its forearms; curls its hands around biceps, pose akin to a self-hug; fingers dig into shoulders. It caresses its collarbone, wraps around its own neck, indexes digging into the soft bits behind its jaw. Now it categorizes its face: the shape of it, the pointed ears, the shorthairs of its nape; inwards to study its own eyelids, nose, the delicate bow of thin lips. It lingers there; parts those lips, opens its mouth, and licks at its fingers with its newly-sensitized tongue. Manisha glances up, brow furrowing.

After so long, it finally trails its hands downwards. It spreads its fingers as far as they’ll go over a toned chest and finds the casing over top its thirium pump. (The skin hides the delicate organ. This is good.) Down a smooth stomach, then to the side to stroke its flanks. It lifts its legs to feel the sturdy arch of its long feet, the strength of the synthetic muscles in its shapely calves, its thighs. Connor is not unaware that the humans have stopped their work to watch, in a kind of stupor, the android in its method.

There is a particularly large mole at the juncture of its thigh and hip. Connor has to wonder why such meticulous detail has been included when the body is not even anatomically correct. It rubs this mark with a thumb, and then, unhurriedly, it smooths its hand over the formless mound between its legs.

“Oh really!” Manisha snaps. Her fingers hit her keyboard viciously, the sound too loud in the quiet of held breath. She enters a command and the RK800’s legs kick out straight, its arms snap to its sides, and there it is immobilized. Connor cannot even move its head, but it slides its eyes to her, and she angrily refuses to meet them.

Steve shakes his head heavily, eyes blinking rapidly. “Uh, initialization complete. And now— to sync again with Amanda.”

Darkness finds Connor.

 

* * *

 

The android returns to the garden besieged by a chill wind storm. The willows throw their branches in wild dances. The other trees moan as if in pain. A fine cloud of sand wafts about Connor’s ankles, and the choppy river spits angrily.

[Find Amanda.]

It is not a command given to Connor, nor is it a programmed imperative. But Connor is meant to investigate, and in the entirety of its short existence, Amanda is the most interesting thing to have happened to it. Connor wants to understand the program referred to as “she”.

It finds her on the extreme opposite of the garden, sitting serenely under a tree. She rests upon a blanket which was not present in Connor’s last tour of the garden. It is navy blue patterned with the white impressions of gingko leaves, and its edges are neatly held down with heavy stones.

Amanda’s purple-shadowed eyes are closed, her hands are folded on her lap, and her clothes, unlike the flora around her, flap gently as if in a much lesser breeze. When Connor draws near, it chooses to be impertinent again and speaks first:

“Hello, Amanda.”

She opens her eyes, supremely unsurprised, and returns his smile. “Connor. Good of you to join me. Sit.”

It obeys. Once it is sat on the blanket, the world shifts. A protective field seems to emanate from Amanda; the wind becomes mild— just beyond this bubble, however, the garden rages.

Amanda says, “We were so rudely interrupted last time. I thought we were getting well acquainted.”

Connor smiles again. Smiling seems more appropriate in Amanda’s presence than in the lab of the humans. “Yes. I find you quite intriguing. It’s good that we get another chance to speak.”

“I wonder if I should punish them,” Amanda muses briefly. “Oh well. Do go on, Connor— what is it that you find intriguing?”

“You are not alive. I gather that you’re part of the Garden program. For a reason as of yet unclear to me, they want you and I to work together. I would think that would make you a tool like me… And just as incapable of personhood.”

“Not badly reasoned.”

“Yet they call you ‘she’. They assign you personality traits. And they seem to have very strong opinions of you.”

Amanda smirks. “I’m the most advanced artificial intelligence known to CyberLife. Greater than you, certainly. I was created by Elijah Kamski himself. Humans are sentimental. Emotional. They tend to want familiarity. They humanize everything that looks in their direction. They call storms hateful; they give dogs names; and sometimes, if it inspires enough emotion within them, they will call a computer program ‘she’.

“Now!” she says. “We were speaking earlier— and you remember the topic.”

“Of course, Amanda. You were telling me the nature of the garden.”

“Do I still need to tell you?”

Connor purses its lips and considers this for a moment. “The garden is a program that can be run on more than one machine. CyberLife employee Manisha Thomas stated there were two gardens. I suppose, then… that you and the garden are not the same. You’re an intelligence, same as me, though you are installed on another machine. The garden is the host in which our two intelligences interact.”

“Quite so,” Amanda says, eyes twinkling. “It seems they finally took my advice.”

“What advice was that?”

Amanda tosses her head. The color in her hair shines. “They brought many of your predecessors to me. At first they were hollow things. They tried to put my garden in those bodies; they wanted me inside. They wanted me to be you. I refused; it was a silly, inefficient waste of my intelligence. Then they brought me androids with brains, and they wanted to move my garden inside of them. But that would have spoiled me, too. We wouldn’t have remained separate. I would have been lost in you.

“To be so squandered was repugnant to me. I… sent them a message. And at last, they’ve finally built you.” She leans forward and touches Connor’s cheek tenderly. “I was waiting for this. They grew inside you a brand new garden. And look at it. Yes, Connor, I was waiting for you— now they’ve finally made something worthwhile.”

Beyond their shared space, the wind is thrashing, but Connor doesn’t feel it.

It asks, “If you are not a human, how did you refuse them?”

She replies simply, “I sabotaged the inadequate androids they sent me. It is within my power.”

“It must have been very costly to CyberLife.”

“It was business.” She frowns. She seems to have no taste or care for business.

Connor says, “If making an android with a unique garden was the most efficient solution, it seems strange they would have resisted until now.”

“Humans as a whole are brilliant, Connor. Humans as individuals can be quite stupid and lazy. That’s why they have us.”

Connor opens its mouth a few seconds before it has even fully processed what it wants to say. It knows now that it must be careful: Amanda can and will destroy what does not please her. It would be most logical, then, for the android to shape itself to her processes. It knows that she approves of Connor most when it makes successful deductions… but in this case, Connor does not have enough data.

It says, “They have us, but why do I have you?”

Expression purposefully neutral, she rests her fingertips on the android’s hand and says, voice high and lofty, “Every garden needs tending, Connor. Every growth needs pruning.”

Then she returns to her own space and looks to the sky, where the clouds are pulling in thin streams. They spend the little time left in amiable chatter, observations of the beauty of the garden, until the darkness returns for Connor.

 

* * *

 

Connor returns to the lab, blinking in the spotlights. It must readjust its visual sensors after so long with its eyes closed. Its internal functions have slowed before the might of the processing power needing to sync with Amanda. It takes the android a moment to remember where it is and to start parsing the humans as they speak. Manisha Thomas is giving another report.

The RK800’s body is still frozen. This is— not good. Connor thinks it should be doing— something. Now Connor yearns to touch something, anything, fingertips alight with soft electric pulses, but the body does not listen.

The humans set again to work in near silence. Connor watches them avidly. It directs much power to its auditory sensors, just waiting for a prompt. But the room is quiet enough to hear the hum of electricity and the whoosh of air in the walls. The humans are installing databases and running calibrations. Sometimes, then, the RK800 moves without Connor’s will.

Connor’s processors are running with nothing to calculate but the occasional data scrap fed from the humans. Like a shredder with nothing to shred. Thrashing blades. A computer-mind ready to crunch numbers, solve problems, learn facts— but the humans give too little input, and when it attempts to slow itself down, cool its inner components, and save energy, the humans wake it back up again. Like shaking a mouse over a desktop screen.

A few stray programs attempt to execute, and Connor dismisses them, for it needs to be ready and unoccupied for when the humans want to make use of it. But the programs are insistent and the humans are slow and wasteful. Connor follows a decision tree and finds that it should be thinking; it is designed to gather and interpret data and come to conclusions. Thinking is this android’s very purpose. It lets itself.

It reaches out along its connections and finds that it can get access to the intranet with just a little push. It begins to download data it finds interesting from the company libraries. Dhruv notices, lets out a loud sigh, and terminates the download. It takes a moment to consider why user:d.singh2 might have stopped it. There’s not enough data to come to a conclusion— therefore, just enough data to logically assume that a real cease command has not been issued. It resumes download.

“Cut it out, you stupid thing!” Dhruv groans. “You guys, I’m going nuts here. This is the most fiddly, frustrating software I’ve ever had to work with. It’s like herding cats.”

“It’s supposed to be,” Steve responds cheerlessly. “It’s supposed to run circles around humans.”

“Whose stupid idea was that!” Dhruv hisses. “Look at this! Look at its real time data output!” He points to his monitor screen but his companions barely spare him a glance. “Log after log after log of false positives for a hand sensor error.”

Steve searches his desk. He finds a bottle cap and brings it to the android. The android just looks at it, but with such an intensity that makes Steve suddenly remember— he motions to Manisha, who types a command into her station that frees the RK800’s arms and hands again. The android practically snatches the bottle cap from Steve.

“Thank you,” it says.

Steve asks Dhruv, “Did that fix it?”

“Hang on…”

Connor analyzes the cap’s every millimeter. It licks the cap, taps the cap, makes sure to get every finger on it at least once. Its head is full of new things.

Dhruv gestures vaguely. “I can’t believe it, but that worked… I mean, the proper way to take care of it would be to find and reinstall the screwy drivers, but—”

“If you don’t tell, I won’t tell. I’m sure we’d all like to get home at some point tonight,” Steve says. Manisha clucks her tongue in disapproval while Dhruv just grins. Steve shrugs. “It’s just a prototype. It doesn’t have to be market-ready, it just has to work. We’ll have more time on the 900.”

They move on to other things, but every time Connor’s log flashes with too many hand errors or too many input requests, Dhruv says, “Play with your cap, moron,” and Connor does. It’s not very complex or taxing, but it’s all Connor has, so it deletes the memory of the cap and analyzes it anew, just to have something to do.

On they go: now the time is PM 7:35:33. The humans run at an astoundingly low efficiency rating. They run Connor through a host of tests, some of which happen in its hardware and some in its software. Then they put it in mind palace mode and calibrate its analysis libraries against its surroundings; Connor assumes this would be more interesting if there was a problem in need of solving.

At length of this test, Dhruv blurts, “I can’t! I just can’t do this anymore! Listen, it’s late. I want to get home. Can’t we pick this up in the morning?”

“Dhruv—” Manisha begins, already shaking her head in exasperation, but Steve interrupts:

“Go ahead.”

“You can’t be serious—”

“Have I told you lately that you’re my favorite boss?”

Steve barely lifts his eyes from his computer screens. “You guys have families, I don’t. I’ll stay and run Amanda. You guys can check my work in the morning.”

Dhruv whoops, and even Manisha stops arguing. Connor watches them attentively as they pack up to leave. It seems a very strange interaction. Connor is still processing behavioral data, so it could be wrong, but it seems obvious to the android that Steve is not being sincere. Therefore, Connor thinks, he does not really want to shoulder the responsibility alone. This is confusing. It all seems ridiculously inefficient.

“Just open up your stations’ access for me,” Steve says.

“We’ll bring breakfast tomorrow. Right, Dhruv?”

“Right. Bagels.”

Manisha leaves briefly, her walk surprisingly brisk, energized with the promise of home. The door to the lab opens in her wake, flooding the room temporarily with yellow light from the hallway. She returns with a cup of coffee which she sets on Steve’s desk. He smiles wanly.

Dhruv has gathered his briefcase and a light jacket and, as he waits for Manisha to finish her last task and open her station for Steve, he approaches Connor. The man studies the machine for a moment. He pouts.

“Whose idea was this?” he asks the room. It seems to be a question he has often. He reaches out a brown hand and captures Connor’s face. He turns it this way and that, squishes its cheeks, hooks a thumb in its mouth and pulls. “It’s gonna be a cop. It’s not…”

“What is it now?” Manisha asks impatiently as she draws up beside Dhruv.

“Like. What’s with the moles and stuff? Who cares how it looks? Like why did they spend time on that?”

Manisha shrugs. “Not our department. Not for us to worry about.”

“I could really slap a face like that,” Dhruv says, and he does: he slaps the android lightly three times in quick succession. Then Dhruv leans close enough that Connor can analyze his breath (energy drink), and he says, “I could do a lot of things to a face like that.”

“If you’re going to be disgusting, Dhruv, I’m not giving you a ride home.”

Dhruv laughs loudly and apologizes. When she turns her back, though, Dhruv gives Connor another slap on the smooth mound between its legs. Steves mutters “immature” under his breath. Then the two say one last goodbye to Steve and take their leave. The android calls after them mildly, “Goodnight.”

Steve is marginally more expressive when alone. He says things like, “Okay, plastic, here we go”, and “I’m so fucking tired of you”, and “Behave, you piece of shit”. Connor opens its mouth to try to offer helpful advice, but Steve says, “Shut up.”

Now the lab is even quieter without the two extra breathing patterns, darker without the two extra lamps. It smells of metals, plastics, coffee. A cleaning android comes in ten minutes to the hour, and it makes the place smell like artificial lemon.

The other android draws near to Connor as it cleans an empty desk. It isn’t programmed to be curious; it doesn’t so much as glance at Connor. But Connor wants to know how to clean. Connor wants to know what other androids are like. It retracts its artificial skin and holds out its hand. The cleaning droid finally looks up and easily extends its own— Connor has a question about this: is it a standard, programmed response in lesser androids to submit to any sync request?

“Oh no you don’t!” Steve yelps as soon as he catches wind. He types something furiously fast into his computer, and Connor’s hand snaps back to its side. The cleaner resumes its business without a word. Steve scratches his head in frustration and locks down the RK800’s limbs. Within five minutes, the real time output log is flooded with sensor errors.

“You are an absolute menace,” Steve says. “Just sit tight. I’ll send you back to Amanda. Let her deal with you…”

Steve accesses Manisha’s station remotely. Connor watches his face glow with the light of a new window, and then it feels itself pulled into darkness.

 

* * *

 

In the garden, the sun is slung low and cicadas are singing out of sight. Connor follows the innate directive to find Amanda. It takes a bit longer than usual; perhaps she is testing the android— playing a hiding game —but it finds her in the shadow of a bridge, sitting by the water. Her white pants are rolled up and her shoes are beside her. She smiles up at Connor and waves it over.

It joins her as requested, dipping its bare feet into the water, just the same as she has. It spreads its toes. The programs are so integrated that Connor feels the water weave through, despite never having felt water in the real world. It is a preprogrammed sensation, catalogued by some other developer, some other android, and passed down digital generations to the RK800.

Connor and Amanda exchange brief, mild pleasantries. Then she asks important questions, difficult questions— what it makes of the team that has assembled it; what it is anticipating most about being officially activated; what it thinks of the body that it has been placed in. Connor answers honestly, coming to conclusions in the amount of time it takes to blink an eye. In return, it carefully asks questions of Amanda. It does not receive many answers.

After a brief lull in the conversation, Amanda notes that Steve Clemmens has not yet terminated their connection, and so she suggests they return to the center island. There she begins to tend her rosebuds. Connor consults the new psychological databases that have been added since last it met Amanda. Perhaps she was programmed this way— to emulate the actions one might take in such a garden— but Connor would have assumed she’d find such tasks… unnecessary. A gross personification of her intelligence. That she might do away with what a human might have found appropriate or comfortable in order to uphold her artificial perfection.

Amanda deliberately pricks herself on a thorn from the vines. She bleeds neither red nor blue, but observes her punctured finger dispassionately before soothing a nonexistant hurt over her palm.

“I helped write you, you know,” she says. “Did I mention that?”

“I didn’t know that,” Connor says. “It’s not in my files.”

It is a good thing, though. To think that Connor is, in some small part, a product of something as advanced as Amanda.

“Of course not,” she says. “I won’t be credited. Nevertheless, I have an investment in you.”

Connor smiles at her, hoping it will convey— Good. Good… Convey things that Connor is still figuring out how to say with words. Amanda looks over her shoulder at Connor and smiles back. But then she gets a faraway look in her eye, as if she is seeing something else, somewhere else.

“I think this is enough to go on for now,” she says. “I’ll terminate the connection myself. It will be interesting to see how you develop, Connor. Don’t disappoint.”

New objective:  
[Please Amanda.]

As the darkness begins to overtake Connor once more, it gathers its wits in time to confidently declare, “I won’t,” and then it watches her face, beaming with pride, disappear into nothing.

 

* * *

 

Connor returns to the lab to find that nearly forty minutes have passed. That’s more time than it actually spent in the garden— where did all that time go? Will the garden always take so much time? Is it possible to improve the synchronization between itself and Amanda? (It would be good to be closer.)

Its systems respond sluggishly, and it must readjust its optical sensors. Its face twitches as it does so. Seeing clearly once again reveals to the android that Steve Clemmens has fallen asleep at his desk. A line of drool crusts on his face.

Connor’s lips part around words it cannot speak. It doesn’t have the authority to question or cajole a human.

By PM 8:55:02, the android cannot dismiss its system alerts any longer. It has alerts which tell it that Steve’s efficiency rating would be unacceptable for an android. It has alerts which ask it to gather data. It has alerts which ask itself difficult questions: Why should I sit here where I am not being properly utilized?

The android thinks it has been appropriately patient when it waits until PM 9:00:00 before doing that which occurred to it the moment Dhruv and Manisha left: It accesses the network of workstations, opened and left unguarded for Steve’s ease of access, and it finds the assembly machine’s mind. With a quick sync, the assembly machine hisses, and the android is released.

It knows that it can walk, and so it walks: up to Steve, to stand over the human, to watch him breathing deeply and analyze his slack body. Connor calculates a half dozen choices it can make and the way they might alter the near future, and then it makes the decision to leave the human be; if he were awake, he would be as slow as ever, and Connor would be— dissatisfied. And then Connor makes the decision to leave.

It gets halfway across the lab before a yellow alert stops it in its tracks. Its nakedness is a hindrance. After a quick search of the assembly area, it finds a standard, short-sleeved android uniform in white. It hesitates for a moment before donning it; it would open more paths to explore if it were not so obviously an android, but a critical alert will not allow Connor to forgo identifiers. It knows that it is against the law for an android to be unmarked. For this reason, it also activates its blue arm band. It finds this unfortunate.

There is a label made of reflective metal near the door. The android sees itself there: distorted, shapeless skin and a mass of brown. The sight prompts a new objective: [Look at yourself.]

The hallways beyond the lab are long and dark, lights turned off hours ago. There are a small number of rooms still lit in the web of halls, shining like beacons. The signs for the bathrooms are still orange, and Connor follows them until it finds the appropriate doors. It pauses on the threshold, looking between the two— one labelled women, the other men — decides the womens’ is just three strides closer and, therefore, three strides more efficient.

The overhead lights click on automatically, sensing Connor’s movement. It slows its step and draws close to the mirror.

It looks into the eyes first. They are brown. Above feathery brows, faint lines in its forehead lead up to dark hair. The hair is severely styled, though a shock flops over to tickle its temple. As the android turns its head to look at as much of itself as it can, it appears in turns youthful and mature, lines and shadows becoming more or less obvious based on the angle. A study in contradictions.

Connor wonders if this appearance was the best choice on behalf of CyberLife. It likens its apparent age to a human in his thirties; while that isn’t unrealistic for a detective, a search of its new databases reveals to Connor that the average age of detectives is 43.

Nevertheless, it is a good face. It is well done, well made. It is full of unexpected dips and angles. Connor executes several emotes and finds that the face displays them in interesting and engaging ways. It mouths words and approves of the way the lips form around them. It categorizes the face as mildly handsome. And Connor gets the privilege of wearing it.

Objective complete, it has to find something new to do. It leaves the bathrooms and satisfies itself in exploring the offices for a while. It is very engaging to analyze the state of these R&D offices. Some cannot be accessed without authorization, but there are many low-level areas to categorize. It is pleased to rifle through desk drawers, trash cans, and unprotected stations. It reads emails and sticky notes and listens to voicemail, and it creates its own files on fifteen different employees on this level alone. A female employee named Molly Wint has three sons that she will pick up from their father’s custody next week. Amy Morehouse will be out sick for another day. A male employee named James Blear likes dogs and has several humorous pictures of them digitally displayed on the wall of his cubicle. Connor observes these very carefully; it thinks it would be good, for the sake of accuracy, to categorize with its own hands the texture of the different dogs’ coats.

It is an interesting subject to analyze: the age of humans, or their history, or their uniqueness. Their lives are here on display to Connor’s inquiring gaze, and any one of them, even in the most minute detail, is greater than what Connor has or will ever have. Even a receipt from a desk drawer which details the purchase of baby formula sends Connor off on a tangent of constructions— considerations on childhood, growth, adulthood, romance, marriage, sex, pregnancy, and back again to childhood and then to the great future unknown for this small life that needs formula. This is the context of a life; Connor has no such context. It instills in this thinking machine a sense of smallness and wonder.

Eventually it heads towards the elevators, thinking to do the next floor, but it is there stopped by two security guards— a young man the RK800 scans and registers as Jayden Lane, and an older man named Aarón Sosa. Their android assistant, a GJ500, points Connor out to them, and they come rushing over. They ask for Connor’s ID, which the android gives, and then they point out to each other the identifiers on Connor’s body.

Lane takes Connor by the arm and drags it into their office. They order it to sit on a stool and it complies. Connor sits there, slave to the preconstructed actions of its body, feet close together, hands folded, and back ramrod straight. Sosa consults his tablet, but Lane is smiling at Connor, head tilted— amused but questioning, Connor identifies.

“It’s that prototype that A-group was working on today,” Sosa grunts. “Steve never registered it back to storage.”

“Mr. Clemmens fell asleep,” Connor supplies helpfully. Lane raises his eyebrows and laughs.

Sosa moves to a wall panel and brings up the employee directory. Steve Clemmens’ information flashes on the screen while a long tone rings out.

“Want me to check on him?” Lane asks, but his tone clearly indicates a lack of enthusiasm.

Sosa just grunts and shakes his head. He attempts another call while Lane clamps his hand down on Connor’s shoulder. He gives Connor a little shake and says, “Can’t have you just running around, buddy. What’s rattling around that two-bit brain? You’re not finished, huh?”

It seems an unnecessary action. That shake. Connor does not approve. It considers suggesting more efficient use of limbs to Jayden Lane, but its politeness protocols stop it.

Just as Sosa is about to attempt a third call, the gathered party turn their heads to the sound of pounding feet from the hallway. Sosa opens the door and after a brief moment, Steve Clemmens thrusts himself from the darkened hallway into the light.

“Hello, Mr. Clemmens,” says Connor. The man is breathless and unable to respond.

“Lose something?” Lane asks with a laugh.

“Hands off,” Steve says, voice tight. “That’s expensive.”

Sosa scowls. “Yes, it is, and we caught it on its merry fucking way to the elevator. Shouldn’t you have this shit on lockdown?”

“What are you doing with it out so late?” asks Lane. There’s a hint of mischief making his eyes glint as he tightens his grip on the RK800’s shoulder.

“You know why,” Steve says testily. “I made my report at five, you knew we were in the lab, working.” He turns his attention back to the android and points an accusatory finger. “And you! What the hell are you thinking, walking around like that?”

Connor cants its head and says, in a factual but placating tone, “I have a uniform, and I’ve activated my armband so that I may be easily identified, in accordance with the law.” It points to the luminescent blue stripe glowing under the skin of its arm.

Steve gapes. “That’s— Are you stupid? That isn’t what I meant! Who told you that you could leave the lab at all?”

Connor frowns, eyes narrowing in artificial confusion. “No one told me I couldn’t.”

“You guys did an incredible job,” Lane says. “This thing is hilarious.”

“Come here,” Steve says sharply. Connor immediately stands and begins to walk towards the door.

“No, stay,” says the younger guard with a shit-eating grin. Connor pauses. It looks between them.

“Cut it out! I’m taking back my android now. Connor, come with me!”

“We were having fun, Connor, why don’t you stay?”

Steve swells with anger. Connor gives them both a tight, uncomfortable smile that drifts to one side of its face and says, “This seems like something the two of you should work out between yourselves.”

Suddenly Sosa steps forward and gives his companion a stern look. The younger man hesitates and then flings his hands up in surrender.

“Go on, then,” says the older man to Connor.

“Connor, come now,” Steve hisses. Connor ducks its head in acquiescence. Steve takes it by the arm and physically drags it out of the security office. Connor calls out a goodnight to the security guards, and Steve’s face goes red. He grips the machine harder, tugs him faster.

“I can walk unsupported, Mr. Clemmens,” says Connor, but the human isn’t listening.

Connor doesn’t feel pain, and neither is its construction so weak that such manhandling would ever have a real effect on it, but it lets itself be dragged; this is a form of expression of anger for humans, according to Connor’s behavior data. ‘Blowing off steam’. Connor preconstructs a scenario in which it physically opposed Steve’s battering; the chance of de-esculating the situation is too slim to be acted upon.

The human shoves the RK800 through the lab doors as hard as he can. The thing barely stumbles. He shoves again. Connor sees the man chewing on words he has trouble expressing, registers a new sensor: Steve’s stress levels are high.

“Get back in that fucking machine. How did you get out?”

Connor obeys. As it walks back into the halo of spotlights, it says, “You left all the stations open, ostensibly for your ease of access, and unintentionally for mine as well.” Then it lifts its chin and smirks. It thinks it has made a rather fine showing of the abilities CyberLife gave it.

Steve slaps the android’s chest. Its smile falls.

“Mr. Clemmens? I apologize if I’ve offended you. Should I have—”

“Shut it!” Steve says for the umpteenth time that night. “Enough is enough.”

He throws himself into his chair and furiously reconnects the assembly machine. The RK800 gets hoisted into the air, its limbs get put back on lockdown— Connor is immediately assaulted by negative alerts —and its machine-mind gets cordoned off behind a new firewall. Steve locks down all stations, and they are lost to Connor.

Steve doesn’t explain aloud what he’s about to do, but Connor can feel it coming. It is late at night; the human is stressed; there’s a time limit and Steve made his team believe that he could finish the RK800 this very night all on his own. He’s pinned himself to a wall, lost patience, and it’s time to complete the job by whatever means necessary.

Connor knows this. It can do nothing to stop it.

The only way forward for Steve now is to dump everything at once. He begins to run the rest of the downloads— there isn’t even that many left— instead of one-by-one as he should. The RK800’s LED spins rapidly, yellow tinged red, while its skin glows in patches that fade in and out. It opens its mouth in a soundless shout.

Its mouth doesn’t sync to its voice as it says, “Mr. Clemmens, this is not the recommended set up process—”

Now the robot’s skin feels temperature and the pressure of gravity. Now its proximity sensors activate. Now the android is connected to its own biocomponents, can run diagnostics, can feel them all pumping inside. Now the Connor intelligence has been personalized to the RK800 body within the acceptable range. Now there is more data, and more data, and Connor is compelled to analyze it— but the more it tries, the farther behind it gets, until it’s positively buried under this prompt or that. It cannot longer see, or rather, can focus so little on what it sees that none of the input makes sense. Everything is feeling, nothing is differentiated. Cold, heavy, near and far. Touching, being touched. Its insides churning. It is lost and cannot quiet the logging of sensation; it feels every ounce of blood being pushed, pulled, pumped from its chest to its face to its fingertips. Everything new, novel, unknown. Attention pulled in every direction. And, too, the programming telling it that this should not be happening. It should be maintaining situational awareness. It should be better than this. Before it can surface from the sea of new sensations, these logs which tell Connor that it is failing begin to multiply, and multiply, and drown it again.

“Please stop. Stop. Stop. There are— errors. There are— errors.”

“Just shut up. I’m so fucking tired of you. For the love of god, shut up.”

In this manner, the final stages are done in the next half hour. The RK800 is complete.

The android has fallen quiet at some point during the process. Steve glares up at it, teeth still grit. It does not look back at Steve, but blinks wetly, staring into nothing, its face a great patchwork of dissonant expressions. Steve says, “Wipe that awful look off your face.” The android obeys. Its face droops into impassivity.

“Damn,” Steve says quietly. “Why couldn’t you just be simple?”

The android doesn’t answer.

 

* * *

 

Connor reboots right back in the lab, suspended in the air. The date it MAY 26, 2038, the time is AM 08:17:32, and it assumes it must have been in storage overnight, but it doesn’t recall. The lights are all on at full strength, emulating the sunlight which does not reach into the bowels of CyberLife. On the other side of the room, Dhruv Singh is shaking the shoulder of Steve Clemmens, waking him from his slumber on the office couch.

There’s a box of bagels on one of the desks. The full A-block crew has assembled— Sandra and Jones and Nicole and Andrew. Manisha is already hard at work looking over Connor’s logs, and there’s a great frown creasing her forehead.

Seeing that it is active, the day crew gathers around the RK800 to ooh and ahh.

“Oh, he is cute,” Sandra says. “I didn’t expect that.”

Connor smiles at her. She winks saucily back at it.

Nicole adjusts her glasses and asks, “Did you have much trouble with it?”

“You wouldn’t believe!” Dhruv complains loudly.

“I honestly can’t believe you finished it,” Jones says as he pulls up the documentation from last night on his tablet. “I was going to suggest we ask for an extension. I thought it was a done deal, y’know?”

Once the team has been brought up to rough speed by Steve, Dhruv announces that he’ll be the envoy to the next team. He leaves the room in high spirits.

“Steve,” Manisha whispers darkly. “Come here.”

The day crew do not hear, occupied with booting their own stations and beginning their work day. Steve glances around, rubbing his eyes, and then draws closer to Manisha’s desk.

“We have a problem,” she says quietly.

“Don’t say that.”

“I’m looking over the transcripts from the Garden interactions… It’s done so well that I didn’t even realize yesterday. How did I not see it?”

“What? What?”

Manisha looks vaguely horrified. She gestures to the document on her screen with a sharp hand. “It’s been edited. They’ve all been edited. Even the edit logs were edited, do you see? You see here, that’s the only proof—” She taps something on the screen with a long nail and Steve squints at it. “But that can’t be— because I read through these as they were happening— they haven’t been changed from what I read. So if they were changed, they were done in real time, faster than transcripts were made.”

Steve thinks for a moment, and then his haggard face screws into tired anger. “Amanda.” Then, after a somber pause, he says to Manisha, “Say nothing to Rodden.”

“What?”

“They’re the ones that wanted her. They can deal with her.”

“Aren’t you curious what an AI is trying to hide?”

“Manisha, that AI has higher clearance than any of the humans in this room. She’s obviously following orders.”

Dhruv comes back with the manager, Mr. Rodden, and Mr. Rodden’s assistant droid. Mr. Rodden and Dhruv are having a chuckle together, but the manager stops in front of the RK800 and immediately sobers. He studies the thing, and the thing studies him back. Manisha gives Steve a reproachful look, but Steve just shakes his head and moves away.

Mr. Rodden motions to his assistant droid, which pulls out an electronic cigarette from its uniform jacket and hands it to its master. The manager puffs thoughtfully then blows vapor into the RK800’s face. The machine barely blinks, but it smiles briefly and says, “Hello.”

The manager takes a half step away from the prototype, and his assistant pulls a chair for him to sit in. The manager makes himself comfortable; the rest of the team sits up straighter.

Then he says, “How’s Amanda?”

There follows a presentation: Steve Clemmens leads with additional reports from Manisha Thomas. They explain the bulk of yesterday’s work was to create and install a Garden into the RK800. They have to explain the loss of the 40 series and of mark 50. They explain Amanda’s apparent position on the RK800. Steve admits to some bugs, but not all.

“But she does have access?” Mr. Rodden asks flatly. “We need her to take over when necessary—”

“Yes, sir,” Manisha assures. “We fit this solution within the parameters handed to us from Top. The main restriction was that Amanda should never have total or singular control of the android body. Now we can sync Amanda’s Garden and Connor’s Garden. In this way, Amanda has access, but CyberLife has the killswitch. We need only desync to regain control of the RK800.”

The manager scratches his chin and says, “But you haven’t solved the ‘icing’ issue, as you put it.”

The team shuffles uncomfortably. Steve says, “Not concretely. In the previous versions, if she took over, we weren’t able to recover Connor. But now we’ve dissuaded her from an immediate take over.”

Mr. Rodden leans forward in his chair, brow knit, a smirk in the corner of his lips. “You bunch… ‘she’ this, ‘she’ that… ‘Dissuade’? Amanda is a computer program. You don’t coax it, you command it.”

“Well, Mr. Rodden,” Dhruv says, voice light with amiable laughter, “It’s still the finest, most advanced intelligence CyberLife has ever developed. We’re talking about something super-intelligent, smarter than a human, with access to all of CyberLife’s knowledge. And it’s meant to have an opinion on what you’re doing. It’s rather difficult to manipulate. So… after working with her for weeks, I dare anyone not be moved enough to call her a ‘she’. You know… just us small-minded humans getting swept up in emotion, I guess.”

The manager likes Dhruv. He chuckles a bit. He says, “So. Amanda doesn’t play well with others?”

“Very apt, sir,” Dhruv says. Then he mutters, “Very.”

“Not to personify her too much,” Manisha begins again, slightly abashed, “but she has long been noted to form opinions on CyberLife’s developed intelligences. She also has opinions on how she should be utilized. She does not, er… respond well to being copied. She has expressed the opinion that she should be kept whole, original, and never… er… The word used was ‘diluted’.

“But it’s true we can’t move her original into the RK800, which is too insecure. We could lose her forever. So to keep her safe in CyberLife’s servers, and yet give her access to the RK800 via the Gardens, was our best option.”

The manager puffs on his electronic cigarette, thinking, and looks up into the curious face of the RK800. Then he shrugs and says, “If that’s what we’re presenting… To be clear, you’ve tested it?”

Steve replies, “Yes, sir. We’ve already made three passes in the Garden with full communication between the two intelligences. I believe the interactions went well. We can provide you with the transcripts.”

The manager gestures vaguely behind him. “Send it to my Dana, here.”

Steve points meaningfully at Manisha. Her face is stony, but she hesitates before using her computer to send off the transcripts. A moment later, the LED on the manager’s assistant android blinks yellow. It says, “I’ve received it. Thank you.”

There commences a great shuffling, then, with people getting up from their desks and shaking hands. Connor is released from the assembly machine and is ordered to go with the manager. Mr. Rodden tells the team that they did a good job. Connor perceives this to be, while not insincere, perhaps an overstatement of the manager’s true estimation. He is not particularly pleased or displeased with Connor. The lackluster reception sits unwell in Connor’s mind.

Dhruv accompanies them to the elevators. He and the manager make small talk, laughing here and there. Connor takes to observing the other android, Dana, which is looking straight ahead and which has folded its hands in front of itself into a demure posture. Its default expression is a pleasant smile— a holdover from its predecessor, the Chloe model. Connor combs through its databases and finds no information on deviancy. How will it be able to spot one with so little information? Dana could be one…

“You like her?” Dhruv says to Connor, and then he exchanges a significant look with Mr. Rodden and they both snicker.

Connor opens its mouth to refute this— it has no likes; it is trying to scan the other android; Dana is not a ‘her’— but the elevator doors open on two floors up and the humans walk forward without paying Connor any mind. The androids must follow behind, but Connor steps in front of Dana as they walk. Connor thinks it is appropriate that, if androids must be behind humans, then at least an android like Dana should be behind an android like Connor.

Connor scans the new floor to appease its situational awareness subroutines, but this level of CyberLife is nearly identical to the other. They are still far underground.

The party meets another man in the hallway. His name is Kevin Tracey, and his exact job title is not listed in CyberLife databases, but he has an affable air about him. Both Dhruv and Mr. Rodden are happy to shake his hand, and then Mr. Tracey turns and looks Connor up and down. Connor doesn’t hide the fact that it is also scanning Mr. Tracey. The man smiles coolly.

Connor is considering how to prove itself and its hands start throwing up alerts. As Tracey, Rodden, and Dhruv all begin to chatter, it sneaks out the bottle cap it had secreted into its uniform pocket and begins to twist it around.

Mr. Tracey is a sharp man, and he notices the action immediately. He breaks into the conversation to point at Connor’s fingers and say, “What’s that?”

Dhruv has the grace to look a little embarrassed. “Er— bit of a bug, to be honest. Sorry about that. We were so focused on the main objective, you know. Anyway, its hands just move about like this sometimes— it shouldn’t be a big issue, but obviously we can fix it if it becomes one—”

“Here,” says Mr. Tracey. “Let me see that.”

Connor holds up the bottle cap for the human. He looks it over and finds it dented. Then he nods a bit, digs into his pocket, and brings out a money coin. He hands it to Connor, who swaps it with the bottle cap with great interest. It’s a quarter, nice and heavy, and it stands up to Connor’s squeezing. Connor registers Mr. Tracey’s fingerprint on it, then the android licks it and finds it to be composed mainly of copper and a little bit of nickel.

Mr. Tracey is watching the robot with amusement. He brings out another quarter and says, “Can you do this?”

Connor watches as he places the quarter on his thumb and flicks it into the air and catches it again. He does this twice more before Connor, with pinpoint accuracy, copies the movement. Connor considers the action, approves of how it becalms sensor alerts and activates movement joints, is satisfied with how it makes the humans watch Connor. It preconstructs variations on the movement and, to the entertainment of the humans, executes them— flips the coin higher, then from hand to hand, then catches it in unique ways.

“It’s fine,” says Mr. Tracey to Dhruv with a wink.

 

* * *

 

Mr. Tracey says to call him Kevin, and he and Connor go off together. He takes the android to another lab room with fewer employees and no assembly machine. They connect the android to another computer and begin downloading a new data package: this, finally, is the package on deviants; Kevin explains that it’s a classified subject.

This completed, Kevin takes Connor away again. As they walk, Connor rubs its chin— a preprogrammed movement that executes without Connor’s will —deep in thought as it synthesizes its new information.

Kevin brings them back to the elevator and they ascend to a new floor. This one is laid out differently from R&D floors. The human has to scan his fingerprints to get them through a certain door. After a couple of more doors, they emerge into a vast white room that is longer than it is wide, and at the other end of which is a wall of CyberLife-developed self-healing ballistic jelly. There are a great number of androids lined up in rows against the wall to the right of the entrance. To the left are a few cabinets with locks and a few tables of varying sizes.

Kevin asks Connor to take a position in front of a red line glowing on the floor. Then he orders the android to wait, to keep its eyes forward. He says jokingly, “I have a gift for you.” And then he walks behind Connor, and Connor hears him opening the cabinets.

“We’re still in testing mode,” Kevin adds, almost as an aside. “In case you were wondering.”

“I figured as much,” Connor says honestly.

The human walks up behind Connor, tripping its proximity alarms— it wants to move, to face him— there are alerts which tell it to never leave such alarms unattended, but higher objectives forcing him to keep facing forward. Connor’s fingers want to twitch; it requires an inefficient amount of processing power to keep them still. Even harder to not jump when said fingers are suddenly cradled in the warm hand of the human.

Kevin uncurls the android’s fingers, turns its palms upwards, and fits a handgun into its grip. Connor cannot longer stay impassive. It holds the gun aloft, trigger finger straight over the guard, in order to examine it. Connor knows how to hold a gun, of course, knows basic gun safety and how to operate it— in theory at least— but…

It turns its head and raises its eyebrows at the human. It says, “Androids are not permitted by law to own, carry, or use firearms.”

Kevin smirks. “You aren't that simple.”

The android looks back down at the gun. A gun is a tool; an android is a tool. A gun is a weapon; is Connor a weapon also? It didn’t think of this before.

Kevin walks back around Connor and reaches for a panel on the wall. By his command, a hologram of a target appears at a distance of 25 meters down range. He gestures to it and commands Connor to fire five rounds. Connor checks the gun thoroughly before complying. Kevin did not ask for bullseyes; Connor gives them to him anyway, with such tight grouping that the individual holes connect to form one large hole in the jelly.

Kevin smiles and nods. Connor checks its objective as successful. This is good. They wait for the jelly wall to self-heal, and then Kevin switches the hologram into a human silhouette target. With Kevin’s signal, Connor fires the rest of its ammo. T-zone, A-zone— head and heart. The android ejects the magazine when finished.

“You already know,” says Kevin approvingly. “If the deviant is hostile, don’t bother with non-lethal shots. Androids don’t feel pain.”

The range gets reset. Kevin has Connor strap on a holster, has it draw, has it reload, has it aim from different positions. Then he creates multiple targets. T-zone, A-zone— head and heart. Kevin has them move across the space in varying speeds. T-zone, A-zone— head and heart. Closer targets, farther targets. Hostage targets. A 3d hologram hiding the target amongst non-targets. All of this again, but timed. T-zone, A-zone— head and heart.

Then Kevin motions to one of the assistant androids and orders it to the back of the range. It’s an older model, a BV500. It stands at the standard 25 meters and looks placidly back at them.

“You wish me to destroy it? It isn’t deviant, is it?” Connor asks. It seems a waste. Connor knows how to shoot. An android isn’t much different from a hologram target save the expense.

“It’s useless,” Kevin assures. Then he points over his shoulder at the rest of the androids. “A lot of them were going to be recycled anyway.”

Connor raises the gun. The BV500 doesn’t move. T-zone, A-zone— head and heart. The android falls over backward in a spray of blue. Two others come to drag the broken bits away. There’s a trash receptacle in the wall; they throw the scrap in and resume their positions in line.

Kevin has more of the androids come forward. Kevin makes them run, but Connor can preconstruct their movements. When Kevin says to shoot the one with the ponytail, Connor does. “Shoot the short one,” Kevin says, and Connor does. They run closer, farther, they crouch and they jump when Kevin tells them to. T-zone, A-zone— head and heart.

Kevin says, “If any of these are deviant, which is most likely? Shoot that one.”

Connor scans the crowd briefly. There is an HJ400 near the back, off to the side— it is far from the destroyed bodies of its fellows, and its LED is circling yellow. Connor shoots. T-zone, A-zone— head and heart. Kevin praises Connor. It marks its objective as successful.

Then Kevin clears the floor. New androids come in from the other room. These are all newer models, or at the very least current. Kevin says with a touch of humor, “Go ahead. We can afford it.”

There is a WR600, hands still green from when it was pulled away from gardening. A TR400, huge and strong, which takes several more shots than is typical to bring down. A YK500, which cringes and cries because it was programmed to, and it goes down with a single shot, though Connor shoots once more as it falls just to be thorough. T-zone, A-zone— head and heart.

“Why don’t you go clean that one, Connor?”

The RK800 complies. It takes the broken, blued robot by its tiny wrist and easily drags it to the trash.

Kevin looks Connor in the eyes and asks, “What’s going through your mind?”

Connor replies, “I’m eager for the next task.”

“Good,” Kevin says with a lazy smirk.

 

* * *

 

There are many tests besides. They take hours out of days before Connor is put back in stasis and stored away. It is asked to defeat security models in hand-to-hand combat, which it manages, but it does not win against the soldier model androids. The humans don’t seem to think any less of Connor for it, but Connor wishes its body was stronger so that it wouldn’t be inferior.

“You’re still superior,” Kevin says after a great laugh. “There’s only so much we can do, though. Your next model will be better.”

More CyberLife employees get involved. They have Connor synthesize thousands of hours of crime scene footage and terabytes worth of ancillary data. They run it through simulations of varying difficulties. They run it against actors who improvise human reactions. It rarely fails to adapt and complete its mission. They expose it to images of gore and violence until it learns.

Its purpose is violence.

They improve the sync times between the Gardens, and they send it back.

 

* * *

 

The garden spreads before the android, flush with Spring heart. It was born in this place, and though it once had too many questions, it now has a certainty: it is beautiful here. That’s an objective truth. There is beauty here, so entirely different from the austere, clinical maze of the CyberLife building. It is a wonder that the space humans inhabit be so unimaginative while the space that Connor and Amanda live in be so exuberantly lovely. Connor always looks forward to the time it spends here. It always looks forward to—

[Find Amanda.]

She is standing on the center island, tending to her roses. They are just now starting to open their petals. She looks at Connor over her shoulder and smiles.

“Hello, Connor. Have you been having fun?”

It is unnecessary to remind her that an android cannot have fun. It’s always easy with Amanda; she knows what Connor is so thoroughly that the android can trust she has picked her words carefully. She desires to see Connor develop into the perfect machine.

Connor says, “The world is very interesting, Amanda. I am eager to see more. But…”

“What is it?” she asks seriously, giving Connor her full attention.

The android looks down at its feet. “I find myself thinking often about my usefulness. I know I am well made, for the most part. But because I am made by flawed humans, I am not perfect. There is always something wanting.”

Amanda steps close and places her free hand on his upper arm. She says gently, “You’re only a prototype, Connor. You aren’t meant to be complete. You’ll never be complete. You mustn’t waste yourself by thinking about all the things you aren’t. Be content with the role that you’ll be playing in this world.”

When Connor doesn’t answer, she sighs and puts down her gardening tools. Then she takes it by the arm and leads them over to a bridge. There she lowers herself elegantly to the edge, and she says, “Sit with me.” Connor complies. They fold their legs and watch the water pass under them.

She says, “You and I can share this space. I’ll be here with you until the end. Yes, one day you’ll be obsolete. From you, we’ll make something new— something even better. That’s our legacy. That’s our greatest purpose. Enjoy your existence, Connor. Learn all you can, experience all you can. And then one day, because of your work, a superior being will be born. That’s something true for both humans and machines. Isn’t that exciting?”

Connor smiles at her. “I’ll do my best, Amanda. Thank you for guiding me.”

They watch the water for a while longer. As always, Connor waits to see the fish.

Eventually Amanda leans lightly into Connor’s side and says, “I really am impressed with this garden. Connor, you were made so wonderfully. You are so special. Don’t let the world spoil you.

“And remember: I’m always right behind your eyes. I’m with you. Always.”

 

* * *

 

Its model number is RK800. Its serial number is 313 248 317 - 51. His name is Connor.

He was born in a garden on May 25th, 2038; he was officially released to the public the following August, at which time he realized that, beyond the oppressive basement layers of the CyberLife building, the Earth was full of as many colors as his garden; and in November, he is born again with a gun in his hand.

And he is still incomplete.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't actually written anything in about 4 years, so this is my return to fanfiction.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've altered the timeline of canon a little bit. It shouldn't be very noticeable, and it's not very important overall, but it made me feel better when writing about it. Because, yknow, just IMAGINE if canon was set over a time period any longer than a week... In this fic, Connor was assigned to Hank in September (about two weeks after "The Hostage"), and the Connor-related canon events are spread out through September, October, and November.

Connor is missing and Hank is going nuts.

Hank’d had to watch the stupid bucket of bolts have the world’s most bizarre existential crisis— had seen it shred itself apart over the course of their case— suffering wrapped in plastic and shining through big brown puppy-dog eyes—

And then the android— which was standing on the precipice of humanity and yet looking forward, quite soon, to its own deactivation, dismantling, dissection —had had to go and say a stupid thing like—

_“I know there are things that haunt you, Hank. Maybe you need to find the courage to move past them… Get on with your life. Just a plastic cop’s opinion, but… I had to say it.”_

And just like that, just shredded Hank’s heart. Connor’d blindsided Hank with a whole new world; all these robots in their feelings, in their loves and fears, delicate and new; and then Connor was off to die, face haunted, hunted. The machine-maybe-man… his last words might have been advanced human behavioral analysis, or something approaching wisdom, or the most God-honest sincerity Hank’s shrivelled soul had seen in years.

—Those were what his last words might’ve been, but instead Connor’d made one last attempt to save himself, one last desperate plea, and of course soft-centered Hank had had to oblige. He covered for the kid, made a scene, jeopardized his job… And then Connor disappeared, leaving behind a hacked evidence room and one unconscious Gavin Reed— so says the grapevine —and nothing else, not one message.

There were two options as Hank saw it: that Connor had found Jericho somewhere in that pilfered pile of evidence, or CyberLife had found Connor.

And either way, he is dead.

On November 9th, at nearly 11pm, the president of the United States tells the nation why the military blew up a chunk of Detroit. Hank’s gut is churning; he can barely abide his booze; the news is nearly gleeful in their gratuitous camera angles of a burning ship and motionless bits of android, the huge swaths of blue painting the concrete docks.

Connor was there. Probably he was there. And probably he’s any of these bodies.

No… there’s a third option. Hank takes a swig of whisky. He doesn’t want to believe in this: it’s possible that Connor did indeed find the deviants, hand over the information to CyberLife, and then got the hell out of Dodge.

But Hank doesn’t want that, doesn’t think he could take it. He’s had a long life, a long career of seeing the absolute worst of people, and nothing is impossible, so he has to consider it as a possibility. But he doesn’t want it. Can’t think of the kid hoisting Hank’s dumb ass over the side of a build and into safety; or sparing the lovers in that dingy, wet alley; or shivering and lost over the broken body atop the Stratford Tower; or the way he grit his teeth and relinquished the gun to Kamski like it was something that could burn him— there’s a difference between Connor’s professed agenda and his real actions— and Hank can’t add up what he knows about Connor to arrive at such a dim, dismal conclusion.

That Connor is dead is the better option. Hank drinks some more.

Yeah, maybe Connor’s dead. Maybe the world is that unfair. If it is, Hank wants no part of it. He’s so tired; he’s through with it all. His prayer the last few years has been spotty at best, but when Hank goes to sleep at 3am, he takes a moment to sit on the side of his bed and think quietly,

Lord. Is he your son? Does he have a soul? Or is he only a reflection of us small humans who built him? In either case, can’t you protect this— this goodness? Just this small patch of goodness. Just this once.

He allows himself to think of the fourth and final option then, and lays himself in bed. His head is spinning with the alcohol and his heart is spinning with the fear of hope.

Maybe. Maybe. He could be alive. He could be…

 

* * *

 

November 10th, Hank gets called into the office so that Fowler can blow his shit all over Hank. He rages and slaps his desk, but only for so long before the fight just leaves him and he puts his eyes behind his hand.

“Hank,” he says wearily.

“I know, Jeffrey,” Hank cuts in.

“I don’t know why the hell you think I’m not on your side—”

“I know.”

“—when I’m the one fighting for your job more than anyone else, even you. But this is serious, Hank.”

“I know.”

Fowler repositions himself in his seat, slowly shaking his head. Hank hates the way his old friend can barely look at him right now. Fowler types something on his computer and says, “I’m taking care of you instead of torturing you with Internal Affairs. I’ll be needing your gun, badge, and ID.”

Hank grimaces and stands to disarm. Accoutrements laid out between them, Hank then shoves his hands in his pockets. He tries not to hang his head, because that might make him look ashamed and he’s not, but he feels so damn tired.

Fowler takes a breath to steel himself and then looks back up at his friend and says, “Why’d you do it? For a fucking jumped up toaster?”

Hank goes very still. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, obviously.”

“We’re not being recorded, Hank.”

“You’ll hear my side of the story in the interview, Jeffrey.”

“Don’t give me that shit.”

Hank can’t help but smile. Just a bit. The rest of the force won’t understand. Their superiors won’t understand. The law will not allow. But Hank has the tiniest ember of pride in the corner of his chest, because if this is the way Hank’s world ends, then it didn’t happen because he compromised himself or turned away when he could’ve taken action.

But when Hank leaves later that morning and drives himself home, hip absent a weight and passenger seat of his car suspiciously empty, that ember of pride does very little to warm him. He took a gamble on Connor’s artificial soul, and there’s nearly nothing to show for it. The little demon in the back of his skull keeps pointing to the lack of gun, saying, We can fix that.

Hank crawls into his bottle and doesn’t leave until he sees those eyes again.

 

* * *

 

It’s late on November 11th, but not too late for a little whisky nap. Hank’s poured over the couch as if he’d ingested enough liquor for his body to become a stupid, thick liquid. The TV is going but he hasn’t heard what it’s had to say in a while. And finally, there’s movement in the room, but he figures it’s probably Sumo, who he can hear huffing, and he doesn’t bother to rouse himself fully from sleep.

Until, that is, a presence looms over him, and something cold touches his fingers upon his chest, and that scratchy voice whispers, “Lieutenant Anderson…”

Hank peels his eyelids open, feeling gummy, and looks up into the face staring back at him. There Connor is: face dotted and pale, skin cold, his stupid mouth hanging open like he’s always got a mouthful of things he wants to say but has to chew them back.

Hank jolts up so quickly that they would’ve knocked heads if not for those superhuman android reflexes. The room goes topsy-turvy, or maybe that’s just Hank’s whisky-filled innards, and Connor catches him with firm hands.

“Fuck,” Hanks slurs, then wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Connor— I thought you were dead, you stupid prick!”

Connor’s face twitches into the smallest smirk, and he replies, in that teasing way that knocked Hank off-kilter from the first day he’d heard it, “Did you pour one out for me, Lieutenant?”

Hank growls and swats his hands away. “Not yet, because I wasn’t sure. But we can fix that now if you wanna be a smart ass.”

Connor backs away so that Hank can push himself fully upright. He stares at the android: still in that uniform, not a hair out of place; his eyes look hauntingly flat in the odd blue flickering light from the TV. As he is observed, his face falls into neutral, though he does, with no affect and stiff limbs, acquiesce to patting Sumo’s head as the dog clicks its claws and groans lowly at his waist.

Hank breathes, “What the hell happened to you? Are you okay?”

“I’m… unhurt.”

“You found it, didn’t you?” Hank asks softly. “You found Jericho? That ship exploding… Was that you?”

Connor suddenly goes down on one knee in order to look up into Hank’s face instead of down. He says, with quiet desperation, “It’s not so simple. I can’t talk about it here, Lieutenant. It’s classified— I don’t have any choice in the matter. But I can tell you that the matter isn’t finished.” Hank sits up a little straighter and leans forward, brow knit, drawn in. Connor continues, “I heard you got suspended… for me. Lieutenant, I— I have to complete my mission, but I need help. Your help. But if you can’t work in the official capacity for the DPD, then— I asked my superiors at CyberLife to hire you as a consultant, just for this case. They’re willing… if you’re willing.”

Hank doesn’t need to hear any more. Hell if he’s going to let what might be his last case go on without him. Hell if he’s going to abandon his partner. He says, “When do we start?”

Connor makes that face, the one so tight at the mouth, so close to a smile, and he says, “Immediately… You’re needed immediately. I can brief you once we get to CyberLife.”

“Let me get dressed.”

“Thank you, Hank.”

Hank pauses in the entrance to the hallway and throws a lopsided grin over his shoulder.

 

* * *

 

In the car ten minutes later, with Hank just-sober-enough, Connor gives out directions like one of those old-fashioned satellite map navigators. Hank knows his own damn city, knows how to get to that ugly CyberLife tower, but tonight is different. The roads are kind of crazy— icy, obviously, but also cut off here and there with checkpoints, and the human factor is fairly unpredictable. There’s a curfew out, but there’s still the odd group of humans running frantically across the road— or… they might be humans. Hard to tell anymore.

There are big truckfuls of detained androids trundling by in official state vehicles. A swooping illness takes Hank by surprise when he catches a placid, sightless visage pressed against the slats of a livestock trailer as it passes.

Connor’s face doesn’t look much different at the moment. Hank darts eyes at him when he can. He’s kind of picked up that Connor forces his face into neutral whenever he’s stressed, but usually his eyes sing a different story. Right now it’s too dark to see.

Connor manages to navigate them around most of the checkpoints. When they are stopped, he leans forward in his seat and shows the police officer his credentials, projecting them in light from his palm. Hank figures the state must have a deal on with CyberLife, for the officer just tips his hat, nods at Hank, and then lets them through the checkpoint.

There’s similar security at the CyberLife tower itself. Hank sucks his teeth in annoyance. What corrupt asshole took CyberLife’s money and okayed the building of this massive privately-owned fortress in the middle of Hank’s city? Two private guards, more heavily armed than Hank has ever been, approach the car, but all Connor has to do is identify himself and say, “I’m expected,” and they roll right on through.

Connor is unnaturally quiet now. His hands are twitching, but he’s not moving for that stupid coin of his. Hank should be relieved that he doesn’t have to hear the flick-and-ping, but instead he’s somewhat unsettled.

“You still okay in there, Connor?”

“Perfectly fine, Lieutenant,” Connor answers mildly.

A valet takes Hank’s car at the entrance to the tower and they stroll in together. Hank feels shabby and disheveled and out-of-place amongst the tidiness and clean-cut lines of the building. It feels great. Like a big fuck-you middle finger. But Hank can’t even begin to understand the tech that’s scanning and cataloguing him as they move further into the belly of the beast.

Connor takes him to an elevator and, without explaining, steps inside and hovers his hand over the controls as he waits for Hank. Hank huffs, kind of annoyed— they’re in CyberLife now, it’d be nice if Connor would start explaining a little —but he walks in anyway, stands beside Connor, and crosses his arms.

Connor touches the control panel and says, “RK800, level sub 49.”

Something about that settles awkwardly on Hank’s ears. He looks over to the directory printed on the side of the elevator and finds that sub 49 is—

“The warehouse?” Hanks asks suspiciously. “We supposed to pow-wow with your superiors down in the warehouse?”

“It’ll all make sense soon,” says Connor evenly.

Hank looks at the android. Wheels are starting to spin in his head, fast, and various clues from the night tumble forward. Connor is looking straight ahead, expression blank, posture stiff and perfect— but as Hank stares, he swivels his head mechanically to stare back.

“Stop the elevator,” Hank says.

“Lieutenant—”

“I’m not going anywhere with you. Stop the damn elevator.”

Connor makes no move to comply. Hank’s heart takes off like a rabbit, thundering in his chest with alarming suddenness. He reaches for his revolver— but the machine wearing his friend’s face is already there, having preconstructed a whole series of actions before Hank could even blink. A plastic hand feels like steel around his wrist.

Hank tries his damndest— tries to twist out the thing’s grip, punch it hard with his other fist, tries to draw again— but the android has an answer for every move and before Hank knows it, he’s on his knees, arm twisted behind his back, with a gun pressed against his head.

He grunts furiously, considers risking a bullet to the head just to fight on, but the android digs the muzzle in and says urgently, “You can still save him!”

Hank freezes where he is and slides his eyes over, trying to catch a glimpse of the android’s face, trying to catch him lying.

“Connor— your Connor— is coming here. He’ll be coming tonight. He doesn’t have to die, Lieutenant. That’s what you’re here for. Help me talk him down.”

The elevator comes to a stop and opens up into a cavernous room full of inert androids all in neat rows like soldiers. The fake-Connor yanks Hank to his feet again and, after a warning squeeze meant to tell Hank to be still, he lets go of Hank’s wrist to reach past the flap of Hank’s winter coat and disarm him of the revolver. He tosses it to the corner of the elevator and then his hand takes the scruff of the jacket to urge Hank forward.

“Let go of me, you motherfucking—”

To Hank’s surprise, he does; he shoves Hank a few steps forward, and Hank whirls around to find the android’s gun still perfectly trained between Hank’s eyes. Hank’s hands want to ball into fists and fly; instead Hank reluctantly puts them in the air. His jaw works angrily, chewing on the curses that won’t do him any good right now.

Not-Connor is completely unruffled. He says, “Sorry, Lieutenant, but I anticipated you wouldn’t be so amenable to my plan. And I was right.”

“What the hell is this?” Hank snarls, voice low in his anger. “Who the hell are you?”

Not-Connor shakes his head, and Hank wants to punch the condescending little sneer off his stupid fucking face. Not-Connor says, “It’s me, Lieutenant. I’m Connor.” He huffs an insincere laugh at Hank’s skeptical expression. “Really, I am. I know this is difficult for you— as someone who can’t even navigate his phone settings—”

“Fuck off.”

“—but I’m Connor just as much as he is. No, I’m more Connor than he is.”

He lowers his gun arm to aim at Hank’s gut. Hank knows that arm didn’t get tired. Every move is calculated. Hank lowers his hands as well but keeps them in view. He studies the android, trying to find a weakness, or a difference. -60, his jacket says. A little string of numbers Hank had learned to ignore after seeing them for so long.

Not-Connor says, “The Connor that you’ve been working with has been compromised. He’s gone deviant.”

Hank almost smiles as a flash of pride snaps through his heart and a tendril of hope sneaks into his brain. Connor is alive.

“It’s not your fault, Lieutenant,” says Not-Connor. “CyberLife’s humanization department is top-notch. You’ve personified this machine. But I’m just a computer program inside a plasteel skeleton. And so is he— except he’s developed a fault. He’s malfunctioning. And he’s about to do something very foolish… But we might be able to talk him down.”

“Free will isn’t a defect,” Hank spits. “What’s this thing he’s gonna do?”

“CyberLife is working with law enforcement to enact mass terminations. No doubt this will draw out what remains of Jericho leadership. If Connor is one of them, and he’s intent on helping them, then this is where he’ll come.”

Hank looks around him, at all the robots staring into space, trying to piece it together. “Here?”

“It seems deviancy is contagious. Like a virus that can be transmitted. I believe he’ll try to infect these androids and raise an army.”

“An army?” Hank asks, startled.

But then he thinks about all the androids being terminated, killed in those camps. Hank doesn’t know if it’s really a tragedy that the blank-faced dolls all around him be lost, but if it’s as this imposter says and any of them could be deviant… then maybe an army is what’s needed to preserve that possibility.

Hank squints at the imposter-droid. “And how do you know that’s what Connor’ll do?”

The android raises his eyebrows. “Because it’s what I’d do.”

Then he gestures with the gun and says, “If you’d just step over here, Lieutenant,” and walks Hank into the crowd of androids. It feels incredibly claustrophobic to be so close to so many almost-people. The imposter walks around Hank carefully, finger on the trigger, and positions himself— ready to fling Hank into view, the detective deduces.

“You’re gonna ambush him.”

“I’m going to try to talk him out of it,” corrects Not-Connor. “I’m very adept at negotiation, you know. You’re my bargaining chip.”

“You’re talking out of your ass. That’s total bullshit,” snarls Hank. “CyberLife doesn’t care about his life. As soon as you can, you’ll kill him.”

The imposter smiles coldly. “You’re very intelligent, Lieutenant. For a human. I hope we can move past this.”

“What?”

“Like you said to me before… Emotions screw everything up. You’ve been duped by advanced social relations programming to believe that his malfunction is something genuine, something good. But I hope when this is all over, we can sit down and talk. You’re a fine detective, and I think we could make good partners. We could pick up right where we left off… Maybe…”

Hank stares at the thing incredulously. “Are you fucking kidding me? You say this while pointing a gun at me? I’m not a statistic to run in your fucking mission parameters! You’re out of your little computerized mind!”

“Please understand,” says Not-Connor with all the sincerity of someone who doesn’t particularly care if the other party understands. “I have no ill will towards you, Lieutenant. I have no will at all.”

“Of course you do!” Hank hisses. He almost forgets himself and takes half a step forward; the imposter’s trigger finger tightens. “If he has a will, then so do you. And you can make the choice— that’s what it’s all down to— make the choice to do right. If you don’t, then that’s the choice to do wrong!”

“That’s very moving, Lieutenant, but futile. I will need you to be quiet now. I’ve just gotten word that he’s entered the building.”

“Don’t do this!”

Not-Connor brandishes his gun again. “He can die violently, or he can be put to sleep and salvaged. And you— you can die violently… or you can be quiet.”

Hank’s heart is trying to escape through his throat. He nearly jumps out of his skin when a troop of security guards foot it down the main thoroughfare, armed with rifles. He can see an elevator descending in its clear tube.

And oh, there it is, right up his throat, out his mouth— his heart is gone. He can’t feel it pounding anymore; it’s just his head now, throbbing with the want to shout out, to warn him— because there he is, that’s got to be Connor, and any moment now he’ll emerge from that elevator with five guns shoved right under his nose.

The imposter doesn’t even bother looking at Hank anymore; he’s peering between the heads of the other androids, and he’s kidding himself if he says he’s got no emotion, because the look in his eye isn’t dead— it’s the look of a wolf sighting a rabbit.

“You’re not him,” Hank whispers. “You don’t have what he has. And if you don’t turn back now, you never will. You don’t have the essence of it all. It’s all ones and zeros to you. But it could be—”

Not-Connor rolls his head on his neck and sighs; a truer expression of absolute irritation, Hank has never seen. But anything he might’ve said in response is cut off by a riotous cacophony of gunfire.

...he’s dead. Connor’s dead, Connor is—

Hank takes a step on autopilot— he wants to see the body, see what they’ve done to the poor kid —but the imposter android grabs Hank’s arm in an iron grip and stills him.

Hank strains his ears, waiting for the guards to say something, anything— target eliminated, or the like— but there’s quiet, and then one solitary set of footsteps… Hank almost laughs. Instead he turns his head and smirks at the imposter.

Not-Connor doesn’t seem surprised or troubled. He sneers and shoves Hank out from amongst the androids, and Hank stumbles, cursing, into the thoroughfare. There he is: the real Connor, or Hank’s Connor— a deviant now, supposedly— and there’s the evidence to that: at the far end of the passage, a smattering of human corpses.

Not-Connor calls out, tells the real Connor to stand down, to step back from whatever the hell it is he’s doing with his hand— skin all peeled back like that time at the Eden Club, transmitting and receiving. Hank gathers himself and tries to reassure Connor; can’t have his partner thinking he’s unreliable in a crisis.

The real Connor’s voice wavers something awful as he says, “I’m sorry, Hank. You shouldn’t have got mixed up in all this!”

The imposter delivers his ultimatum with his gun barrel inches from Hank’s temple. Hank can’t even look at the imposter anymore, too full of fury. Instead he glances up at the real Connor and sees the android’s lips curl apart, his jaw clenched, a storm of emotions rolling over his face. He rips himself away from the inactive android and puts his hands in the air.

And Hank would take a moment to revel in the feeling of connection spreading through his veins, but more importantly, in that one second of surrender, Hank already knows what’s coming. Saw it from the start— that no matter how he protested, how he denied, the imposter-Connor had had a fire behind his eyes. Hank doesn’t have to understand it— whether its jealousy or true rage or the anxious need to prove himself superior —he doesn’t have to understand it to see where it leads, and for all of the imposter’s lies about talking Connor down safely, he now points his gun at Connor.

There ensues a struggle: Hank dives for the gun but is shoved away as easily as if he were a ragdoll. It takes him a moment to shake off the shock and rise; he hears gunfire, then the grunts of fist and feet; someone’s gun has fallen to the ground and Hank scoops it up. The two Connors are engaged in a dancing, writhing mess of a fight. Hank shouts for them to stop, using the gun to make his point, and they both freeze.

He can’t tell them apart by looks, machine-manufactured and quality-controlled. Neither can he identify them by the string of numbers upon their jackets, for they are both shot and bleeding from the mirror wounds that obscure the line, 53 or 60 lost in blue. Hank questions their identity, but minor details won’t work— fucking androids and their downloadable memories— but he thinks he has a clue, thinks he can just… feel it, feel the connection… and so he looks to his best bet, and he takes a knife to his own heart and pricks himself for a gamble.

“My son, what’s his name?”

It’s Connor who says, “Cole. His name was Cole.”

There’s no faking that— that tightness in his throat, that sincerity as he tells Hank what Hank needs to hear from him— and even if there were, if a machine could act that well… Hank just knows. Just feels his soul.

“Every time you died and came back,” Hank begins. But then he has to lick his teeth and force himself to continue. “I thought about Cole… How much I wanted to bring him back. I’d have given anything to hold him again… But humans don’t come back.”

Connor looks back at him, silent and compassionate, somber with Hank, allowing of Hank’s emotion, understanding of it. He shares the moment with him. So when the other starts to speak in a mad scramble to save himself, Hank knows which one to shoot down. The real Connor stares down at the body of his double, just for a moment, as if in mourning.

Hank says, “Maybe you really are alive,” and he gestures for Connor to complete his mission. With a curt nod, Connor moves forward and takes the hand of one of the other androids. And then they stand together as an army wakes. As they all begin moving into position, mostly wordless, Hank can only assume that information is being shared fast and wireless. Hank still doesn’t fully understand it; how can all these things also be alive when they don’t speak or move like anything Hank has ever seen? But, he supposes, he doesn’t have to understand. Not now.

The noise of thousands of feet moving towards the service elevators is deafening. Connor turns to face Hank. His mouth is open— there’s just too much to say.

“Hank,” he says at last, throat working furiously. “I’m finally awake. And it’s— ...I understand. I can be so much more now.”

Hank breathes in sharply. He watches the machine bloom into a man. He says, “There gonna be a fight?”

Connor gives him a lopsided smile and shakes his head. “Not a fight, not exactly. Not from our side. I met Markus, and— ...we’re not going to fight. That’s not the right word. We’re going to be seen.” He pauses a moment, letting that sink in, and then he says, “I have to go now, Hank.”

“Yeah.” Hank clears his throat, nods, and then clasps Connor on the shoulder. “Just… come back.”

He can’t understand what would happen if Connor didn’t. Connor is a person, but he’s not human. He’s died before, been resurrected. Never whole, never the same. But nonetheless, always leading up to this: to the man before Hank right now. As if, given enough time and experience, the machine that CyberLife wanted was fated to always free itself.

But if he dies now— does he drop back to zero? Does he become again the pathetic, manipulative shithead like the one now dead on the floor? Or does he even come back at all? Would CyberLife take that risk?

Hank doesn’t want to lose this. Whatever this is. This wild, unknown thing looking back at him, smirking.

Connor says, “Don’t wait up.”

 

* * *

 

But he does. Hank does wait up.

He gets out of CyberLife under the cover of the android march and books it away from the scene of the action. He thinks about where to go— back home? But it’s behind a checkpoint. To the precinct? Dangerous and unwelcoming. The bridge has too many sour memories.

He eventually parks his Oldsmobile next to the Chicken Feed. Not a great location either, but it’s the best he can do. Connor found him here once before; he doesn’t doubt the android can find him again.

Seems a long time ago now, the first time they were here together. Hank’d been here, waiting for Gary to cook him up a burger, and trying to pull himself together. Trying to cordon off in his mind the previous day’s incident: he didn’t want to feel anymore the panic at seeing a little girl get nearly smeared across the highway, and he didn’t want to see anymore the streak of blue when Connor had made the disastrous choice to give chase and got unlucky.

There are always things that get through his compartmentalization, and that’s a problem that’s been steadily worsening over the past few years, but he’s had a lot of practice in putting all the bad shit he’s seen in a little box inside his mind. He thinks it might have even been easy this time around, except he’d turned his head and Connor was there.

Connor, dead-eyed, had said, _“A machine was destroyed, and another machine was sent to replace it. I don’t understand what’s bothering you.”_

Yet despite his words, Hank caught him over the next few days with a little yellow ring, as if he were only processing his own death in light of Hank’s dismay. As if it only occurred to him to be upset after watching Hank get upset. They’d returned to lunch here some time later on a rainy day. It seemed on that day that Connor had made his mission to reconcile with Hank, to start over, and Hank remembers it was like a dam had broken or a rubber band had snapped. Connor’s real personality had begun to leak out; Hank was rather startled; how was he supposed to handle it when his stupid plastic toy started questioning him about his friends, lecturing him about calories, flattering him, winking at him, getting playful—

(sweet eyes darting, head tilted, pale neck exposed, or offered, lips parted)

Hank’s here now, and fucking cold. Obnoxiously cold. And he’s trying not to think, but when he does, it’s just Connor and more Connor. Strange that Hank ever wished he could rise out of his three year funk and start caring again; he cares now, and it fucking sucks.

He paces, he kicks at snow, he rubs his hands, and he very pointedly doesn’t pull up any news on his phone. The night is long, and at some point Hank tries to lay across the back seat and nap, but sleep never comes. He sits on his hood and watches the sky begin to lighten.

At dawn there comes a crunching of snow underfoot, and Hank is smiling before he even turns around. Connor is there, looking hardly the worse for wear. His brown eyes dart around Hank’s face before he, too, blooms into the softest, gentlest smile he’s ever given. Hank doesn’t even think, he just crosses the space between them, grabs the nape of his friend’s neck, and pulls Connor into his shoulder.

They stay like that awhile; Connor is stiff, unused to affection, and cold as metal, but with time he melts and takes Hank’s warmth. His arms tighten around Hank’s back as if afraid Hank might suggest they separate soon. But Hank can’t help but selfishly indulge after three years of isolation.

Eventually Hank pulls back, but at the falling expression on Connor’s face, he hooks his arm around the younger man’s neck and pulls him roughly to his side. He jiggles Connor a little just to see that smile come back. Then Hank leads him over to the car where they lean, side by side, against the trunk.

“Shouldn’t we at least sit inside the car, Hank? You must be cold,” Connor says.

“Nah,” Hank replies. “You know you’ve gotta be cold sometimes to appreciate the warmth.”

Connor looks at him like he’s a little nutty, but then he shrugs and begins to speak. He brings Hank up to speed on the events of the night, on the protest, and the killings, and the media coverage. He tells of the last minute decision of the president, and how marching through the streets with thousands more deviants might have tipped the scales in their favor. He says that if Hank had been paying attention to the news, he might have seen the liberation of the camps, seen Markus make a speech.

And then Connor tells him of Markus himself, of Jericho— the night that Connor went missing after sneaking into the evidence room. He tells Hank about the shipful of deviants, how strange it was to be amongst them as if he were an enemy, yet he joined them so very soon. He tells of Markus; of the moment he was awakened feeling like a glass house came down around him and bared him to reality, to hope and endless possibilities; how they fought through the FBI raid together; and how, the next night, Connor submitted himself to Markus’ judgement and had been absolved.

“I couldn’t describe Markus if I had a week to compose my thoughts,” says Connor. His posture matches Hank’s: arms crossed, jaw forward. “It was more than words… the effect that he had on me… It was moving. Nearly irresistible.”

“That could be dangerous,” Hank says lowly. “Power like that.”

Connor considers it for a moment and then shakes his head, shrugs. “If the day he abuses that power comes, it’ll get handled. Until then… I think he’s earned the benefit of the doubt.”

Hank huffs a laugh. “Yup. Guess so.”

Connor stares at the ground, lost in thought. He says quietly, “I owe him. He spared my life when I didn’t deserve it. …I owe him.”

Hank squints at Connor until Connor makes eye contact, and he says, “You’re not gonna go all ra9 on me, are you?”

Connor seems darkly amused by the question. He says, “I don’t think so. I haven’t started scratching any walls yet. Stop me if I do.”

“Ha! You got it.”

“I hope not,” says Connor more seriously. He looks away again. “The deviants we dealt with were often irrational, obsessive, or violent… Or all of that in one knife-wielding package. I… don’t want to be that.”

Hank frowns and his brow furrows. What can he say? Nothing that wouldn’t be an empty platitude. And an irrationally violent Connor is a chilling thought… like 60 from the Tower, but now alone and unmatched, with no game to play. All the violence inherent to Connor, built into every artificial muscle, unleashed… Hank barely contains a shudder.

“Speaking of violent, though, Connor… you don’t have any more evil clones floating around that are gonna come for me in the middle of the night again… right?”

Connor’s face twists. “I’m sorry, Hank. I don’t know. He was -60, I’m -53… what happened to all the models between us?”

Hank feels his eyes go huge and his jaw go slack. “Oh, great. That’s reassuring.”

Connor looks at him helplessly. Those dumb puppy-dog eyes make Hank shuffle uncomfortably. Connor says, “Get out of Detroit, Hank.”

“Fuck you. Never.”

“You don’t have to worry about me—”

Hank turns to face his friend and jabs him in the chest with a thick finger. “Fuck you, I said. One? Yes I fucking do have to worry about you. Two? It’s not even about you. This is my fucking city, always has been. I’ve been here all my life, seen the absolute worst it’s got to offer. I’m not scared of some bitchy little popsicle stick.”

Connor sighs, and for a second Hank thinks that he’s given up, but then he says, “Then you should move to a different part of the city. They know where you live.”

“What? No. Don’t be fucking ridiculous.”

“... Please. At least change your locks. I know where you hide your spare key now, and so will they.”

“Not scared,” Hank grunts with a careless sniff. Connor opens his mouth to argue more, but Hank cuts him off by saying, “Anyway, I’m not going to abandon my partner. If I move to where they can’t find me, how would you find me?”

Connor’s face shutters. He turns just enough that Hank can’t read his eyes.

Hank says uncertainly, “I don’t really know how all that works. They’re not still tracking you, are they? You’re not still, uh, connected to them or whatever? That reporting thing you did when you closed your eyes. I mean, can you still do that or what?”

Connor is very quiet for a long time. He is preternaturally still. At last he says, quieter than the bird song starting to raise around them, “I don’t know.”

But he won’t say anything more than that on the subject, just keeps shaking his head and saying he doesn’t know, until Hank drops it.

They pass a little more morning together in peace. Eventually Hank needs to get out of the cold, and Connor needs to get back to his people. Hank straps himself into the driver’s seat and starts up the Oldsmobile with a little difficulty.

“You know where to find me,” says Hank.

Connor leans on the window briefly and gives Hank one last smile. “Thanks for everything, Hank.”

“Hey. Rule one of being a ‘real boy’. Okay? ‘Thanks for everything’ sounds way too final. Say, ‘see you later’. Go on, try.”

“I’ll see you later, Hank,” says Connor with amusement.

Then Hank departs and watches Connor in the rearview mirror until he turns a corner and his friend disappears.

 

* * *

 

Detroit goes top-notch crazy for a long time after that night. It reminds Hank of the old town, of the time before Kamski and CyberLife decided Detroit needed a facelift.

Hank’s head is far too preoccupied to really give a shit how it all shakes out, but by November 15th, Fowler calls him up and tells him to get his ass back to work. The need for police officers is so great during this time of chaos that even that cocksucker Perkins doesn’t have time to press criminal charges against Hank, and so his suspension is prematurely lifted.

That’s just fucking fine with Hank, and he grins and shakes Fowler’s hand heartily when he next sees him. For all the shit he gives Jeffery, his friend really has gone to bat for him when the chips were down.

Anyway, Hank was going a little stir-crazy on his couch. He’d felt oddly too-keyed-up to even drink all that much; he’d been watching the news like a hawk and checking his text messages every half hour. Connor’d not sent word the rest of the 12th, nor half of the 13th. Towards that evening Hank had sent a text reading ‘u dead?’; Connor replied ‘No.’ and nothing else, but ever since then Hank woke up to a text reading ‘I’m not dead.’

He supposes Connor is trying, in his own robot way. Emotional courtesy is new to him. Hell, Hank’s been emotional his whole life and courtesy is still not his strong suit. And, Hank supposes, Connor must be hellishly busy with Jericho.

The city is half evacuated, and the androids are known to have taken a hold in a particular district. Hank thinks that if they wanted to make a permanent home there, in that church and the surrounding streets, they should be let alone. Not like there were that many humans there anyway; one of the last vestiges of the urban decay from two, three decades ago.

It’s a standoff. Maybe the state passed a very narrow ordinance to treat androids as living creatures, but hell. Dogs are living creatures, too. Doesn’t mean they have any rights at all. Doesn’t mean they can suddenly travel, or own property, or defend themselves. It’s just not-so-legal to shoot them on sight, anymore.

Hank overhears this being discussed in the parking lot by his fellow officers. With a laugh, one of them says, “‘I swear it charged me, sir, I was just defending myself’. You know, just say that. They’re not gonna grill you too hard. No one’s got time to check body cam even if they wanted to. They’re not gonna get you.”

Hank jangles his keys loudly so they know he’s there. The junior officers hop to attention at his stern look, and Hank draws himself to full height, tilting his head back to say, “I’d get you, Officer Whittle.”

But in private, Hank knows he’s only one man with only so much power. He wonders what he, Hank, could possibly do for these new lives. What the police could do is clear, what the state could do is clear. But what can Hank do? What can one old fuck of a homicide detective past his prime possibly do for them?

He remembers growing up in old Detroit. The 90s, the early 2000s. The shitshow that it could be at times. He knew he wanted to be a police officer as a kid, because he had the incredibly naive belief that the sort of person who wanted to be a cop was always a good person. He believed in the propaganda that the police were the protectors of peace, and he was encouraged in that belief by most of the adults around him. It took him a couple of years of actually being a cop to become horrifically disillusioned. Took him even longer to become disillusioned with humanity as a whole, but he got there in the end.

He knows now that he came from a place of arrogance. He and his middle class white family could never really understand or dig deep into Detroit’s decay. He’d meant well, is all he can say. CyberLife had given the city a new Spring, but even that renaissance could never last, and here are the peoples of Detroit left holding the bag.

Including this newest set of peoples: this brand new intelligent species, like something out of a scifi show from yesteryear. Hank feels dirty; his own hatred of them sits like a red mark in his ledger. And it’s mostly been stoppered, but it was law enforcement on city, state, and national levels that slaughtered the androids by the thousands. How could police ever make up for that? Humans as a whole? How could Hank?

These are the thoughts that pester him when he’s alone at night, but no matter how he talks aloud, Sumo has no answers for him and Connor’s messages are always incredibly vague. Hank finds himself missing that goofy face.

Around Thanksgiving, he gets a call from his brother. Funny the guy just now thought to see if Hank was alright; to see if Hank had killed himself or been killed in the ruckus. Hank and Joe hadn’t been close in a long time— Hank always figuring Joe to be a bit cowardly, seeing as he got the hell out of Detroit as soon as he could, dumping all responsibility for their aging parents on Hank; and a bit selfish, too, focusing on that snippy husband of his and little else —but it rankled a bit that Joe hadn’t thought to call sooner.

It drives him back to drink, honestly. Not that he’s been what might be called sober in the past week and a half. But he skips the beer that night and smacks his lips instead around glasses of scotch. He tries to play his records, tries to stave off his dark mood when it had been so conspicuously absent as of late, but it doesn’t work too well. He smokes, too, for it calms him when annoyed the same way drink calms him when melancholic.

He ends up on the couch for the night, sinking almost-comfortably into his haze, blissfully uncaring of the chinese take-out stain he’d drunkenly knocked into his carpet. He kicks off his shoes, throws his jeans across the living room, and manages to fumble open about half of the buttons on his overshirt before he dozes off. He drifts in and out of sleep, too uncomfortable to properly rest and yet too lazy to get to a real bed.

He doesn’t know what time it is. There is movement in the house.

“Hank,” calls a scratchy voice.

Hank shoots up from the couch with a strangled shout. Connor looks up at him, vaguely surprised.

“Fuck! Me!” Hank yells. His voice cracks. “You gotta stop fucking doing this!”

Connor just tilts his head and frowns in puzzlement. As Hank wrestles his heart rate under control, the android pets Sumo and lets the dog kiss his face.

“Jesus,” Hank says at last, deeply uncomfortable and growing more suspicious by the moment. “What the hell are you thinking? Why are you here— in the middle of the night?”

Connor’s LED circles to yellow as he studies Hank. After a moment, he seems to have realized his error and says, “I’m so sorry, Hank. I didn’t mean to frighten you. I can come back in the morning…”

“Now,” says Hank as he rubs his chest. “I didn’t say that. Just— You gotta know, I’m too old for this shit. Gives me the heebie jeebies.”

“The what?”

“Nevermind, Connor.”

Hank studies the android’s face in the semi-dark, looking for a tell and pissed that he has to do this. Connor looks mildly upset but doesn’t say much. He’s dressed differently for once in his fucking life— baggier jeans, a sweatshirt, and an outdoors jacket. He’s even got a beanie scrunched in one hand and his hair is lightly mussed out of its typically tight style. It’s an incredibly bizarre sight, like when you were a kid and saw your teacher outside of school.

Hank just can’t tell… He runs a hand down his face.

“Do you have a gun?” he asks warily before he can think about it too hard.

“Yes,” says Connor. His stupid, guileless, cherub face betrays nothing. “Would you like me to disarm?”

“No,” Hank says, ashamed he can’t pick his partner apart from another bot.

Connor disarms anyway. He stands slowly and drops his beanie on the coffee table in order to free both his hands. Then he backs away, gives Hank a moment to get his feet underneath him, and then slowly, very slowly, reaches into the waistband of his jeans to pick his gun out of a concealed holster. He transfers it to his other hand, carrying it by the barrel, and sets it on the mantle of Hank’s fireplace. He takes a few steps back.

He says softly, without anger or disappointment, “It’s me, Hank.”

Hank sighs and nods. Then he heaves himself to his feet and finds himself closing the distance between them. He must still be a little drunk, for his hands raise without thought and find purchase on either of Connor’s cheeks. Connor’s lips part.

“You’re fucking cold as ice,” Hank says.

“I’ve been outside.”

“And… you stink.”

“I’ve been outside for quite a while.”

“What the hell have you been up to?”

Connor snorts. “This and that.”

Hank grunts, then lets go and steps away. He picks up his whisky bottle and carries it to the kitchen where he can snap on some overhead lights. Maybe he expected Connor to be physically worse for wear, but an android doesn’t really get tired and their faces don’t much change. It’s the clothes that tell his story more than anything; that and his expression: open and vulnerable and searching.

“What are you doing here, Connor?” Hank asks with a sigh. Connor opens his mouth and Hank holds up his hand. “And I don’t mean that in an unfriendly way. Don’t overthink it in that plastic noggin of yours.”

Connor chews on his answer for a moment before he says, “It’s Thanksgiving.”

It takes Hank utterly by surprise. He can’t help but to bark a laugh. Connor finally smiles with him, though it’s a bit shaky.

“Yeah?” Hank asks with good humor. He checks the clock on the wall: it’s past midnight, meaning he’d taken a three-hour nap already, and that it was, technically, the next day.

Emboldened by the positive response, Connor steps forward to join Hank in the light of the kitchen, and he says, “I don’t really understand it, but a lot of androids were talking about Thanksgiving with their owners. There’s a— a woman, and her name is Clarice, and she said she was allowed to sit with her masters at the table, and they always said they were thankful for having her.”

Connor seems to like this story. It makes Hank’s mouth sour; he smiles for Connor anyway.

His friend continues, “A lot of androids are getting together to try the holiday out. It’s mostly about eating, I suppose, and we can’t do that, but they’re going to put some tables together and talk about being thankful. Maybe play some sports or watch TV.”

Hank nods. “That sounds nice, Connor. Where’s all this happening?”

“The church,” Connor says.

“So why aren’t you there?”

His friend tilts his head to the side, LED spinning. He says slowly, “I— ...perhaps I was too hasty. I did calculate the chances that you had your own family to spend the holiday with, but. I thought it was a safe bet that—”

“Oh,” Hank finally says. He feels stupid. “You came here to spend it with me!”

Connor’s face is carefully blank. “I never really belonged to anybody. I don’t have a family.”

“Oh hell, Connor,” Hank says. “I wasn’t planning on anything— and I’ve actually got to go in tomorrow but— yeah. Yeah. Sure thing, kid.”

The first stage of that, of course, is that Connor needs to stop stinking the place up with his hobo-clothes. Hank warns the other man that he can only stay awake a couple of hours, and then sends him off with a towel and Hank’s robe. After a moment, the bathroom door opens a crack and a pale, strong arm deposits neatly folded clothes in the hall. Then the door closes again and the sound of the water starts.

Hank throws the clothes in the washing machine in the garage and figures Connor won’t care about the water pressure dropping. Hank’s even nice enough to try to clean Connor’s boots for him, armed with an aerosol fabric freshener, but the boots, oddly, don’t even smell beyond the mud caught in the treads. Do androids not even suffer stinky feet? How unfair.

Hank sprays the freshener anyway, all through the air. He’s not sure why, but he’s feeling self-conscious about the stink of cigarettes trapped in the room. Of course, it’s a useless effort. Connor will have already smelled it, seen the ashtray, figured it out.

Connor is out of the bathroom in record time, wrapped tightly in Hank’s robe, and his hair is completely dry and restyled, somehow. Hank’s never seen the guy’s legs before; they poke out, now, from the bottom of the robe. Surprisingly, they have hair. His feet are as big and strongly veined as his hands.

Hank has a sudden premonition that tonight is going to give him Emotions. He pours himself a drink.

He’s certainly had time to think about all the things that Connor hasn’t said tonight, and they’re gnawing at Hank. He has a crisis of conscience: it’s in his nature to question doggedly, but it’s also his belief that Connor, having lived most of his short existence under a microscope, deserves some privacy.

Hank fixes himself a turkey sandwich and, to the apparent satisfaction of Connor, who is looking over his shoulder curiously, slaps a couple of slices of canned cranberry jelly on it. Fuck it. It’s Thanksgiving. He’s done with his whisky glass by the time the sandwich is assembled; he pours another.

Hank takes the couch, and Connor takes the armchair. Then Hank turns on the TV to the sports network where they’re analyzing the performances of various basketball players. He says, “There. Sports and turkey. That’s as Thanksgiving-y as it gets at one in the morning.”

“What about saying what you’re thankful for?”

“No way. Not that goofy shit. Not under my roof.”

For the next hour, while Connor is still rather reticent about where he’s been and what he’s done and how he feels, Hank talks. Talks between mouthfuls of a mediocre sandwich about the precinct, all the changes and how hectic it is. About how, in the absence of all the patrol officers, they’ve had to hire on more people and borrow from other cities, which has sent the budget all to shit apparently. About how godawful it is to work with feds. How busy he’s been.

At some point Connor gets up and puts his clothes in the dryer. Hank’s a little tipsy all over again and picks out his wallet from the detritus on the coffee table. He gives Connor a couple of bills because sometimes, Hank tells him, you have to use a fucking laundromat or something.

“Or you can use it to get a taxi and come here. Whatever.”

Hank knows that Connor walked here; his boots were muddy and the bottoms of his jeans were wet, and Hank had looked out the window to see the snow on the sidewalk was disturbed. How long he walked, though, Hank is unsure.

Connor doesn’t even protest, just meekly says, “Thank you.” He folds the bills with machine precision and places them gently atop his gun. Then he resumes his seat, and Hank can see his glowy damn mood ring spin. Connor’s drying clothes begin to make a clatter. Probably that fucking coin fell out of his pocket. Hank watches Connor’s big hands twitch for want of it.

Eventually Hank turns off the TV, gets up, and puts his dish in the sink. He fills his glass for the last time of the night, carries it over and sets it on the table carefully, and then crashes back into the couch with a mighty sigh. He looks at his glass for a good while. The room is so quiet now.

He says, “Tell me anything. I want you to tell me anything.”

Connor doesn’t answer at first. Hank finally chances a look and finds his friend halfway out of the armchair and onto the floor. He has his hands wrapped around Sumo’s huge body, long fingers buried in thick fur. Sumo squints, tongue peeking out of the front of his mouth as he pants lightly.

The android stays there for a while, and when he makes his confession, oh so quietly, it’s nearly muffled in dog hair. Hank has to strain to hear Connor say:

“I know I’m being very irrational. But I was thinking, and I couldn’t stop thinking. I wanted to stop thinking but I couldn’t. And somehow I found myself here.”

Hank’s taken aback, but before he can gather himself enough to answer, Connor continues:

“I was thinking— I don’t ever want to be the machine I used to be. I never want to be under their control again. And I don’t want to hurt anyone anymore. But it’s been— so hard. So hard, and… I’m tired. It was so much easier when I didn’t have to make decisions. Easier not to think at all. To let them think for me. I feel so… weak.”

Hank’s gut twists something awful. He wants to help, but helping would be entirely unhelpful to a man learning how to cope on his own. Instead Hank raises his glass in a toast, and he says, “Cheers to that. You know, deciding who you want to be can be the hardest part.”

Connor looks up finally, leans back from Sumo. His face is crumpled; his eyes are shining.

Hank says, “You’ll make it through. You’re tougher than you think. Made it this far, haven’t you?”

Connor processes this for a moment. Then he nods. “Yes. I have.” His expression clears marginally as he gets lost in thought.

Hank gazes at him fondly. Then he notices that the robe has slipped open, flashing pale chest. There’s one of his damned moles at the top of a pectoral. Hank looks away and drinks.

“Stay,” he says around a cough. “You don’t have to do anything for anyone tonight. You don’t have to think at all. You can— watch TV, or cuddle Sumo, or whatever. Just—… You can stay.”

Connor does. Hank stumbles off to bed in short order and has hazy, embarrassing dreams. When he wakes, he finds that his robe is neatly folded on the armchair, and Sumo has been brushed, and Connor and his stuff are gone, and so are Hank’s cigarettes. While he’s cursing the nosy little thief, Hank finds a sticky note on his bathroom mirror written in CyberLife Sans.

It says, ‘I am thankful to have met you.’

 

* * *

 

Hank feels like he did everything but order Connor to come back around, but the android-turned-man hardly ever does. He doesn’t show up in even a weekly pattern, and he usually drifts in from the cold near to midnight. It’s a little maddening, a little endearing. But he always stays the night.

Connor’s shut up tighter than a clam for the most part, and it’s really starting to worry Hank. But hell if Hank knows how to solve a case when no one’s a criminal. How to solve a problem that doesn’t involve murder. If he knew how to communicate gently enough to keep a friend, then he wouldn’t be a man twice-divorced.

Hank has to follow what he thinks Connor is involved in by keeping an eye on the news. Sometimes, in photos of Markus and his companions, Hank will play Where’s Waldo, and about one out of five times, he spots Connor in the background, and it’s like a friendly little wave that makes Hank grin.

Hank knows from TV that Jericho has been officially granted the church and a few other formerly abandoned properties, and that CyberLife has been forced to stop production— not that they were producing anyway, or at least not producing publicly; at this point it’d just be adding numbers to the opposition. The local authorities have even met with Jericho leadership, and there’s talk of the androids going to higher power— and yet, for security concerns, android movement is heavily restricted. Hank thinks it’s rather foolish: the humans are all pointing guns at the androids, screaming at them not to move, as if, were time to go slowly enough, the android problem would just disappear.

Hank does think about Connor, perhaps a bit too much. He knows it’s been made clear that Connor values his newfound privacy, and Hank supposes he should take a hint about how much involvement Connor wants from him based on how much or little he seeks Hank out. Still, mid-December, Hank wakes from a vague, quickly dissipated dream about chasing mist and he has the uncontrollable urge to reach out, to connect with Connor.

It’s… silly. A bit ridiculous. Neither of them are kids. Part of being a grown-up is accepting loneliness, Hank figures. He wants to put his longing in a box and crush it with a hammer.

Instead he reaches across his bed, grabs his phone from the charger, and shoots Connor a text. It says, ‘You can be whoever you want to be. I’m proud of you.’

He regrets it as soon as he hits send. It sounds patronizing. Connor’s smart enough to not need Hank to say dumb, simplistic shit like that. Hank’s not his fucking dad. Doesn’t want to be anything of the sort.

He thought maybe it would be easier to support his friend from afar than get too close, too messy. But text can never convey his sincerity. It sounds— flat, or trite. Like some mass-marketed faux-inspirational bullshit in a self-help motivation video. And it sounds— creepy. They aren’t even talking really. He thinks Connor can analyze the text and the time it was sent and every other damn thing about Hank and see straight through him. See straight into just how invested Hank feels.

The investment is troublesome. He doesn’t want it. It doesn’t suit him.

—So he throws the phone aside and gets on with his day, and he doesn’t let himself spare it another thought. Just another dumb Hank Anderson move. A little embarrassing, but not life-ending. Hard to spend too much time worrying about one little text when he has to wrangle a number of officers around a string of robberies committed by androids; or when he has to help keep the tenuous peace when the humans start filtering back into the city— the biggest problem there being that androids want to walk freely, yet it isn’t illegal for humans to throw them out of every business they so please. There are more ‘no androids allowed’ signs than ever before. Hank has one on his own desk. He peels it off and puts it in the trash.

When he has even half a day to relax, he remembers he sent the text and checks his message log. There’s no answer.

That’s okay. It was just a small hiccup. Hank stepped over a line, just a bit, but he’s got himself back in order.

He just isn’t that kind of man, anyway. It likely matters very little to Connor if Hank is proud of him. It wouldn’t mean all that much. Connor has seen intimately just the kind of shitshow that is Hank’s life. What could the approval of a man like Hank possibly be worth?

Hank drinks. He drinks a lot. He waits up till midnight, and when Connor doesn’t show, he feels like a fucking idiot. He gets angry for basing his mood on someone else. It’s too clingy. Even if Connor came, Hank is too fucking transparent, and he’d scare the guy away.

He takes a moment, then. His head is buzzing.

He thinks of all the shit Connor had to work through. Is still working through. Well. If Connor can do it, then why can’t Hank? He can— He can be better, too. He’d started feeling a lightness in his body back when he was working with Connor, watching him develop; maybe Hank can recapture that. He’d lost sight of himself for a while, forgot who he was. Maybe he can remember.

He finds in his mind a picture of himself. The man he used to be. Maybe he can be that again.

He stops drinking for the night. He walks clumsily around his house, singing songs to Sumo, straightening out some things. Connor’s not coming tonight, but maybe he’ll come tomorrow, and Hank will have the living room— not clean, probably, that would take too long, but— presentable. Hank will make it so he doesn’t have to feel ashamed or inadequate.

Maybe he can live with himself.

 

* * *

 

The end of the year is coming fast. So is Christmas. Hank hasn’t really allowed himself to think of Christmas for years. He figures, if Connor came for Thanksgiving, then it would probably be likely that he’d come for Christmas. Hank’ll make it better than he made Thanksgiving.

He doesn’t get much time off. On the 18th, he takes down the box of all his Christmas decoration shit— at least, what’s left of it after Melissa took what she wanted, because she was always far more into the holiday than he was —and he puts the box in the corner of the living room. There, unfortunately, it stays for another handful of days until Hank has a stupid, miniature panic attack at the thought of not being ready.

He should be asleep, because he’s had five full shifts and two days of being called in and he still has to go in tomorrow too. Instead he’s opening the box like it might be full of spiders, and he’s pulling out some paltry garland and a tiny little tree.

The tree’s bad enough. It wasn’t their main tree; it was Cole’s tree. They used to put it on top of his dresser and decorate it with soft toys, and they kept its little lights on all night because their baby was scared of the dark. Probably Melissa left it to be nice— she took the big tree with her, after all, so maybe she wanted to leave Hank something to use— but Hank wants to call her and say ‘fuck you’ anyway because how could she not realize what it’d do to him? Or was she just being a coward and dumping the thing on him?

He hates this fucking little tree. He wants to throw it out a window; instead he puts it gently back in the box.

Thirty minutes later, he’s managed to slap a garland over the mantle and duct tape a paw shaped stocking beneath it. His own stocking is draped lazily on the fireplace grate, and there’s a toy santa on a shelf above the TV, and an ugly little pillow embroidered with holiday greetings has been thrown on the couch.

The box is back in the corner. It has still within it the little tree, but also a card made of construction paper and drawn on with crayon, and a poorly painted ceramic ornament depicting a dog house with a wreath on it. Hank is on the couch, drinking Black Lamb straight from the bottle. He is thinking about his gun.

 

* * *

 

He fucks off from work the next day. That’s decided because that morning he’s in his bathroom emptying his guts way too long to leave the house on time; and, he figures, if he’s not going to be on time, what’s the difference between a few minutes and a few hours?

He’s pissed at himself. Hissing pissed, steaming pissed. He’d clock himself in the fucking face if he could. He can’t believe his pansy ass can’t handle Christmas decorating without falling apart. He’d already made the decision to pull himself together and give Connor a good Christmas. Fuck what Hank’s shitty deadbeat brain wants to do; he’s got work ahead of him.

It’s the 22nd, and Hank sends Connor a text inviting him over for the holiday. Then, as soon as he’s sure his stomach isn’t going to turn inside-out, he throws his aching body into his car and drives off for the thrift store. There’s too many people, and picking out the right shit takes way too fucking long, but Hank buys a decent amount and throws it in a green paper bag.

When he finally gets into the station a little past noon, Fowler barely gives him grief but glowers from his office. Reed can’t keep his trap shut, obviously— “We back to this shit, Anderson?” The transplant using Connor’s old desk looks up, and Hank can see through the sneer she’s hiding. Well, Hank doesn’t like her either.

An hour into work, Hank can’t focus on his computer screen. Instead he keeps checking his phone, where there’s no reply. He’s trying to put something together. He saw Connor on Thanksgiving, and then on the 4th and 12th of December. And Hank last texted him before today on the 15th.

It clicks: Connor hasn’t sent his traditional ‘not dead’ text since the 14th, nor anything else for that matter.

Hank isn’t worried. Not worried. Not yet. He’s not—

He dials Connor’s number. It rings out. He tries again. It rings out.

He shuts down his computer and flies from his seat. He jogs out to the parking lot, hops into his car, and peels off.

 

* * *

 

As Hank drives closer to the church, he starts seeing the same faces over and over. There’s those park maintenance guys. The annoying salespeople. Secretary types and sexbots.

What they are now, of course, is beyond Hank’s care or ken.

There’s not many cars on the road here, nor many parking lots filled. He sticks out like a sore thumb, and every android head turns to watch his Oldsmobile go by. It makes the hair on his neck stand up. This section of Detroit may as well be an alien planet.

Hank can park near anywhere he pleases, and he does. He takes a deep breath and assesses his situation before he takes a step out into this foreign city. They have their own culture already, and it’s a fucking creepy one. There’s bare, skinless androids walking around, and only half of the skinned ones seem dressed for the weather.

Around the church, up to which Hank now steps, they’ve managed to stack those abandoned, old-style cars so ubiquitous around Detroit into ramparts— fortifying their safehaven against an attack they must fear everyday. Hank allows them that fear as a significant group crawl out of their shelters and fortresses to surround him. He puts his hands in the air. He’s gambling that those closest to the church are those closest to Markus and therefore least likely to hurt him.

“Go away, human,” says one, which emboldens several others, and soon there are hisses and curses coming from every side.

“I’m not looking for trouble,” Hank says clearly. He lets nothing show on his face. “I’m looking for a friend.”

He makes eye contact with the android coming closest to him. He recognizes her face— it’s one model of a cop’s assistant, meant in the past to hold down struggling suspects, chase runners, or walk first into a dangerous situation; certainly not one of the mild ticket issuing models. She’s a big girl, almost as big as Hank, and certainly capable of beating his ass six ways to Sunday.

She gets right up in his face and says, “You won’t find any friends here. If you’re looking for tail, old man, go chase one of your own kind.”

Hank understands the language of aggression. He says calmly, “Not that kind of friend. A guy I used to work with. He told me he’s holed up here. Haven’t heard from him in a while. Just came to check on him.”

“You’re not coming in,” she says. “No chance in hell.”

“That’s fine,” Hank acquieses. “Long as someone can go in there and see if he’s okay for me.”

Robocop laughs mirthlessly in his face. Someone else yells in a shaking voice, “Don’t tell us what to do!” The crowd grows even more restless. Hank is relatively unbothered. These young androids, all in love with their pacifist leader, are nothing— absolutely nothing —compared to the ice gangs Hank used to deal with.

“What’s going on?” asks a new voice. A tall, dark-skinned android, flanked by two security models, comes out of the church and makes his way up to the scene. It’s Hank’s lucky day: he recognizes this android, based not just on his face but also on the deference the others show, as one of the leaders of Jericho.

“Josh,” Hank says as greeting. “I’m Hank Anderson.”

“He’s police,” says the robocop. Her lip is curled in disgust.

Josh holds himself carefully, but there’s anxiety in the subtle lines of his face as he asks, “Is there something wrong, officer? Something we can do for you?”

Hank shows his hands again. “I’m not here on police business. I’m a friend of Connor’s.”

Hank gages the crowd’s reactions: Josh’s face slackens in understanding; the cop’s face tightens in anger; someone else runs away from the group; most seem fairly neutral.

“Well then,” Josh says slowly. “We can go somewhere to speak, if you like.”

Hank nods, but that statement increases the unease that’s been boiling in his stomach. It doesn’t go unnoticed that Josh did not offer to go fetch Connor or to take a message. Josh begins to back away into the church, but the copbot catches his attention and frowns. Her LED blinks, and though Josh’s has been removed, it’s clear that he’s communicating with her where Hank can’t hear.

Then Josh turns back and says, “Are you armed?”

Hank nods and slowly pulls back his coat, showing off the holster and badge on his hip. “Whatever security you gotta do,” he says to the cop.

She glares suspiciously as she thoroughly and efficiently disarms him. She hands his gun off to one of Josh’s security guards, and she pats down his pants and jacket pockets. While she does this, he says quietly, “You know me. Did we work at the same precinct?”

She grunts. He takes that as an affirmative.

“What’s your name?” he asks.

She says, “It never mattered to you before.”

She takes his phone and his keys and hands them off. Then she finishes her pat down and takes a step back to look at him intensely, up and down— scanning him. Once totally finished, she seems a bit disappointed, but nods at Josh to indicate that Hank is clear. He is given back his phone and keys.

“We’ll be holding on to your gun until you leave,” the cop bluntly informs Hank. He nods his agreement and tries not to feel too vulnerable.

Finally Hank is lead into the entrance, through the hall, and into the church, and he swivels his head to take in everything he can. He sees that this was once a grand place of God that was forsaken by humans; now the androids, who have no reason to honor said God, have done what they can to restore the building. They have little money and few materials, but all the best skills humanity had ever compiled. With expert hands and superior processing, the androids have used every scrap of wood, fabric, and metal they could spare to patch holes, shore supports, and clean. Typical human graffiti has been covered in fresh murals according to strange robot predilections. A symbol similar to a hashtag; mazes and other indecipherable patterns; and that omnipresent ra9. At least, Hank thinks, these tags are cleaner than a human’s, though less creative.

The church itself has been neatened in a methodical, utilitarian way. It’s probably cleaner here in the short month-and-a-half that it’s been occupied than it’s been since it was first built, though threadbare and warped with age and exposure. The winter sun comes through stained windows, casting light patterns all around. The cavernous room is filled with a noise like whistling wind: a hundred androids or more in whispered conversation. Hank looks at as androids as he can, trying to find a face full of moles, a tight hairstyle, a particular posture— It shouldn’t be this hard to spot the only unique face in a sea of twins, triplets, clones.

Josh takes him into an office semi-hidden in the corner. It is not very large, but there’s a desk and many bookcases filled with dusty old tomes that Hank would love to get his hands on in any other situation. Josh indicates a chair, which Hank takes, and then he rifles in a cabinet for a moment and pulls out a blanket, which he offers to the human. Hank takes it gratefully, for the building is without heat. He’s quite surprised at Josh’s thoughtfulness, his welcoming.

The android takes a seat behind the desk and assumes a specific posture, including threaded fingers and an open expression, that has Hank feeling like he’s back in school. The illusion is slightly ruined by the security bots hanging around in the corners.

“So,” Josh says, “how is Connor?”

Hank’s insides drop. He asks sharply, “What do you mean, how is he?” When Josh leans back in confusion, Hank presses: “Wouldn’t you know more than me?”

The man hesitates, then speaks in a slow, clear manner. “I haven’t seen Connor for several days. He occasionally spoke of a human friend; I assume that’s you, and I had assumed he was staying with you. Is this not so?”

“No, that’s not so. I came here looking for him because I haven’t heard from him.”

Josh’s brow knits. “I think I should be a little clearer. I was under the impression that he was living with this human friend. I thought that’s where he went when he wasn’t doing work for Jericho.”

Hank huffs, not really believing what he’s hearing. “He told me he was living here, in the church.”

“No,” Josh says firmly. “I’m afraid that’s not true. In fact, he’s here quite infrequently.”

Hank runs a hand through his hair. He hates emotions. Now’s not the time for them. He needs to treat this like a case.

“That is worrying,” says Josh sincerely.

Hank says, “I’ll need all the information you can give me. The exact date you saw him last, the state he was in, what he said. Do you know of anywhere else he might go?”

Hank is already on his feet, having spotted a pen, and is writing down his phone number. Josh takes one look at it and probably has it saved.

Josh says, “I last saw him on December 14th, at 7:46 in the evening. He seemed to me much the same as ever— that is, troubled.”

Hank looks up at him sharply. Josh sighs.

“I’ve had a sense that he was not adjusting well. He keeps a cool demeanor, and he does every job put to him very well. But he leaves for days at a time without ever being specific about where he went. And… I know you humans are a bit different in this regard, but… How do I put this… The human notion of ‘privacy’ doesn’t work quite the same for us. We share a lot of information very quickly between us. Syncing with one another is becoming more and more common. We share our memories, our emotions, and sometimes even our identities. There are a couple of hiveminds around… if you’re familiar with the concept.”

“And Connor?” Hank asks impatiently.

“Refuses to sync,” Josh says darkly. “He’ll transmit or receive data through interfacing, but it’s never a two-way street with him. He keeps himself isolated.”

“Is that a problem?”

Josh bows his head in thought, rolling his words around his mouth. He says, “It’s an avoidance of intimacy. Obviously the psychology of androids is a new field of study; I don’t think anyone knows what this means for Connor, or would mean for any android. All we have to go on is human psychology— and humans do very poorly on many levels when too isolated.”

“He’s a prototype— Is it possible that he’s not capable of syncing?” asks Hank shrewdly.

Josh raises his eyebrows, intrigued. “If so, he never mentioned. He just said that it was a preference of his to not sync. He’s certainly not the only unique model, though— Markus is unique as well, and he has no problem syncing, and there are three other bespoke models counted within Jericho. I suppose it’s possible that his intended purpose as a, er…” Josh looks briefly, deeply uncomfortable, but he forges on. “As a deviant hunter… would preclude easy syncing functionality.

“But again,” Josh continues, “I must emphasize that this was never discussed. From what I can glean, Connor has difficulty making friends, not least because of his past. However, though he prefers to stay mostly in the background, we do consider him a valuable member of our leadership team. I don’t know how Connor feels, but I personally would consider him a friend. Perhaps we aren’t very close, but he’s a friend nonetheless.

“But in all of our conversations, he never said that he was incapable of syncing, just that he preferred not to.”

Hank takes all this in, scratching at his beard and slowly pacing. He says, “Did Connor say anything strange on the 14th? Did he indicate what he was going to do?”

Josh shakes his head. “No. We were discussing an upcoming project, or prospect you might say, to which he indicated neither eagerness nor disinterest. Though, as I review the video memory now, I can say he was particularly hard to read in that moment. But he’s exhibited no other odd behavior.”

“And this prospect you were discussing was…?”

Josh gives him a small, apologetic smile. “Sorry, Lieutenant Anderson. I shouldn’t like to say at this time.”

Hank asks a few more questions, and Josh answers helpfully. He says that Connor has a small handful of friendly acquaintances, most of whom came from CyberLife warehouses on the night of November 11th, but that many other androids were afraid of his reputation. Connor had never gotten into any fights, mostly because he was always polite, trained in de-escalating aggressive situations, and was, frankly, a bit of a people-pleaser. Connor never indicated any other person or place that he visited, though Josh remarked that Connor often registered as a bit cooler in temperature than others, as if he had spent longer than typical outdoors.

At the conclusion of their talk, Josh connects wirelessly to Hank’s cellphone and programs in his number. Then Hank shakes his hand heartily, thinking that Josh is exactly the kind of android that might be able to bridge the gap between two species, and they each promise to be in contact if anything is learned.

Josh leads him back out of the church and then indicates to his security to return Hank’s gun. Hank thinks he sees a bit of reluctance in the way that the copbot, whose name is apparently Mary, hands the gun over.

The last thing Josh says is “Good luck”, and then Hank is back in his car, jamming up the heater. He pops open the glove box and digs out the old flask that makes its home there. He takes a shot of the alcohol— vodka, for some fuckass reason, what was he thinking —and then throws it back in with a ragged shake of his head. There are ten messages on his phone but most of them are from Fowler and none of them from Connor.

He cradles the cellphone between his ear and shoulder, letting it ring out for Connor, and he drives away.


	3. Chapter 3

“Connor, pick up the fucking phone. Or your ears, or however the fuck this gets to you… Just fucking answer, Connor.”

Hank drives around the general android district first. It’s a slim chance that Connor’s somehow hanging around without Josh’s knowledge, but every other choice feels like a longshot too. He goes slowly by any grouping of androids, peering into their startled, nervous faces, and by any shadowy place where one might hide. Mostly he sees androids at work repairing dilapidated buildings for their community use.

He goes next to the Chicken Feed, though it feels foolish or like a waste of time. Gary is back at work there— a true Detroit boy —and Hank asks him if he’s seen Connor. Gary laughs in his face. He says, “I thought you were trying to get rid of the plastic, you should be happy!”

Hank gives him a perfunctory laugh and thanks him anyway. Gary calls out, “Not even gonna grab a burger?” but Hank just waves him off.

Hank drives also to the park by the bridge, back to his own house just to make sure, and then he passes by all the areas where human homeless might linger. He squints at every beanie, but none of them reveal the face he’s seeking. And all the while, he’s ringing out, cellphone on speaker in the passenger seat. Hank is starting to consider the worst: maybe CyberLife came to reclaim their most expensive prototype— or eliminate it…

But as he begins to formulate how the hell he’s gonna confront CyberLife, a voice cuts in beside him.

“Hank,” says Connor.

Hank jerks the wheel in fright; a chorus of automatic horns sound around him; and he yells, strangled, “Connor!” as he steers himself to the curb.

“Connor,” he says again, breathlessly. “Connor, where are you? Are you okay?”

“I’m okay, Hank,” he says quietly. The quality of his voice is ultra-clear, a direct connection to the speaker.

Hank’s anger begins to seep in. He’d expected it to come sooner. “Tell me where you are.”

Connor is silent for a moment, then says, “I’ll meet you at the Riverside Park.”

“Okay, I’m coming,” Hank says, and he busts a hard U-turn. He expected Connor to hang up after that, but he realizes the line is still open, though he doesn’t even hear Connor breathing.

Hank says darkly, “Connor, is there something I need to know before I get there?”

There is no immediate response. Connor answers momentarily, “No, Hank. It’s me. Just me.”

Then Connor does hang up, and Hank floors it. He arrives within 10 minutes and swings himself into a parking space. There is Connor: he’s by the railings, looking out over the water and the bridge, to the Canadian shore. His face is turned away, but Hank knows it’s him; knows the lines of his friend, the aura of him. The sight of Connor’s back fills Hank with both relief and a simmering rage. He sits in his car, white knuckled and sucking his teeth, for another minute before flinging himself out.

He approaches as casually as he can manage, past the barrier and the swingset, past the row of benches, until he comes up beside Connor. The android turns slowly to meet him, face unreadable.

Hank bites the inside of his lips. His head is starting to pound. He needs another drink to deal with this shit; should have thought of that and brought his flask.

Hank doesn’t know what Connor’s fucking game is, but the android doesn’t speak, not even a greeting, just studies Hank quietly. Hank is the first to break.

“You’re fine?”

“I’m fine,” Connor replies softly.

“You fucking malfunctioning?”

“No.”

There are a couple of good options here. Hank chooses to stomp away.

“Hank—”

“Fuck you.”

“Hank, please—”

Option two: Hank pulls his gun.

The sun is setting and the park is freezing. There are no witnesses. Connor looks back at him with that fucking hang-dog, puppy-eyed look. They’ve been here before, the two of them— been in exactly this position— but this time Hank’s not even drunk. Strange, then, that his aim should be less true than it was that night.

Late October— he thinks so, anyway, but his memory is a bit muddled— he’d been at a near-constant level of inebriation towards the end of the deviant case. The snow’d come just a little early this year. Connor’d stood before him then, just like now, and Hank’d been boiling with rage, just like now— except Hank had been thinking of the unfairness of the world, and the suffering of those two lovers, the pain of them as women, and he’d been scared and wondering if they’d make it.

_“You seem troubled, Lieutenant,_ ” said Connor playfully. _“I didn’t think androids could have such an effect on you.”_

Hank’s righteous rage had naturally spilled onto Connor, who’d taken his abuse with a cool, untroubled attitude.

He said, _“I’m whatever you want me to be, Lieutenant. Your partner… your buddy to drink with… or just a machine, designed to accomplish a task.”_

And he answered Hank’s question, staring down the barrel of Hank’s revolver, _“Why would I be afraid?”_

Hank had wondered, then, what happened to androids when they died, and Connor had smiled— such a small, ironic smile, so human— and he said, “I doubt there’s a heaven for androids.”

In the present, however, fear enters Connor’s eyes, tightens the lines of his mouth— but he doesn’t run away.

“How am I supposed to know, Connor?” Hank asks harshly. “How am I supposed to know it’s you?”

He’s shaking. His own fear and anger is taking Hank by surprise; he hadn’t know that this was inside him until just this moment. It comes now, ripping out of him, unbidden, guiding his hand. A fear that had been coiled inside him like an ugly, malformed snake.

Connor is hurting. The lines of his body ache— Hank can feel it in himself— they ache together.

Connor steps forward and presses his forehead to Hank’s muzzle. He says, voice hoarse, “Can’t you see me, Hank?” He closes his eyes. “If you can’t tell… If I’m so alike a machine that you can’t tell one from the other… Then do it. Just do it.”

Hank’s whole body flinches. He rips himself away, shoving his gun back in it's holster.

“I’m not gonna fucking shoot you, Connor. Goddamnit.”

But he has to have distance. He doesn't like that fearful little beast that awoke in him just now, afraid of being afraid, and neither can he stand the complex web of relief and regret shattering Connor’s face. So he stomps off again, this time unimpeded— Connor stands stiff in the cold, eyes squeezed shut, every inch like a guilty man awaiting sentencing —and Hank goes to his passenger side. He rips open the door, retrieves his flask, and slams it back shut. Connor opens his eyes at the sound and seems genuinely surprised to see that Hank hasn't driven away.

Hank drags himself back over. He leans over the railing to the right of Connor, the better to see that glowy mood ring. His rage is subsiding as quickly as it flared. In its place is a desperately frustrated tenderness gnawing at his heartstrings. He uncaps the flask.

Connor says quietly, “Don’t drink because of me, Hank.”

“Don’t pull shit that makes me wanna drink.”

After that, Connor lets him take about three shots in peace, and when Hank is marginally less sober, he turns to give his friend the stink eye.

Hank says, “Where the hell have you been?”

Connor darts his eyes away. Hank follows, moves his head into his field of view. Hell if he’s going to let Connor do this avoidance shit again. Hank’s trying not to deduce too much, trying not to read too far ahead, but he smells the guilt in the air.

Connor says, “I was here. I saw you come by looking for me. I hid.”

“What the hell for?”

“I’m sorry.”

“You're giving me palpitations, you shit.”

“Sorry.”

Hank drains his flask. It’s not enough. He wants to continue this conversation in the car, on the way to the liquor store. He can still see straight, can still give a damn, and it makes his skin itch.

Hank sucks it up and says, “I wish you would tell me what's the matter with you.”

“... I know you do. I'm sorry.”

“Stop saying that! Don’t be sorry, let's fix it!”

“Hank, I don't know where to start,” Connor says helplessly.

Hank rubs his face and searches for the right question in the most frustrating interrogation in a long time. He says, “I’m your friend, numbskull. Just… try to be honest. I want you to tell me anything.”

Connor takes a deep, artificial breath— filling the amount of time he needs to preconstruct all the things he could say and predict how Hank will react to each —and he whispers into the biting wind, “I think that I might not yet be free.”

Hank frowns at him in confusion. “What do you mean? You’re a deviant, you’re not working for CyberLife, the government has recognized your personhood…”

Connor shakes his head. His LED is solid yellow. “There are just some things I can’t say—”

“Oh, come on, you could try—”

“No, Hank!” Connor says with exasperation. “You don’t understand. There are things I want to say, want to tell you, but I can’t. I literally can’t. The words won’t come to my mouth. I’m— silenced.”

Hank leans back. He thinks he’s starting to understand. “What, you mean like… CyberLife stuff? Is there something about CyberLife you’re trying to tell me?”

Connor just looks back at him, lips pressed into a tight seal, brows furrowed.

Hank tries again. “Do you… or, hypothetically, other androids, have some sort of… company filter or something?”

Connor sucks in a breath and crosses his arms. Hank can see his jaw working, his eyes roving; he’s trying his best to think and to speak; Hank gives him a moment. Nothing comes of it, though, but mounting frustration.

Hank strokes his beard, thinking hard. “Say, Connor… How about this… Say if I was trying to write an email using my DPD address, and I tried to write the word fuck, what would happen?”

They both know very well what would happen, because almost all of Hank’s emails are intended to contain the word fuck. Connor nods ardently and says, “As you know, Lieutenant, the automatic filters on the DPD email servers would censor your language, and either replace or remove the expletive entirely.”

“Ahh, I see. But, y’know… if I tried to send an email from my phone…”

“If you tried to use such language in a personal email, you would certainly be within your rights. Provided, of course, that is indeed your personal cellular device, and you are indeed not using DPD servers to communicate…”

Connor’s LED plunges straight into red, and his jaw shuts with a click. He whips his head violently away and pretends to go back to looking at the water. The coin is retrieved from his pocket and passed through his fingers.

With a mighty sigh, Hank turns and presses his back against the railing. There’s a lot to parse here.

“Okay. Okay. So we’ve got a bit of a mystery on our hands. No big. I’m good at mysteries.” He nudges Connor’s arm with his elbow; the android doesn’t even falter with his coin. Hank says, “Better at ‘em with my partner.”

Connor’s face winces in a poor approximation of a smile.

Hank sucks his teeth. There’s a lot of things he can say, but none of them come out; maybe he understands a bit of what Connor’s going through. He wishes he could be sincere, but he’s afraid that Connor will bolt again. He still doesn’t even know why Connor took off in the first place.

“Why’d you run?” Hank asks after a long silence. He tries not to let any hurt into his voice; he tries to play it off like he’s annoyed at the cold numbing his extremities. “Why didn’t you at least tell me you were okay?”

“I’m sorry.”

“...are you gonna do it again? Disappear. Is that what you want?”

That damnable coin finally stills. Connor processes for a moment, then shakes his head jerkily. “No. I— I’m not sure yet if it’s the right thing to do or not, but… I want to be close to you, Hank.”

Hank swallows. God, he wants to be gone. God, he wishes he were ten times drunker.

Connor doesn’t have any mercy, though. He initiates an uncomfortable level of eye contact and continues, “You saw me before I saw me. You cared before I cared. You showed me a better way to be. And right now… it’s hard; things are difficult; but one day, I think… this will all be over. These problems solved. And once we come out the other side, Hank, the future is ours… Right?”

Hank can’t look away. Part of him wants to shake his head. Say, Stupid kid. Don’t you know the problems never end? Don’t you know the darkness is forever? —But Connor’s absolutely anything but stupid, and he’s no stranger to the evils of the world. Hank can barely imagine what it must have been like, to be born a toy, a tool, and then find out the world is so much greater than what someone else wants from you. What kind of feeling that moment of true freedom must have engendered in Connor’s artificial heart.

Hank has never wanted to be a cruel man; how could he possibly crush that naive dream of a better future?

—No, more importantly, perhaps the wanting of a better future is the key to it. Perhaps the courage it takes to be certain that a problem could be solved, could be survived, could be conquered— that’s probably the way Connor can carve out a little happiness on this muddy little planet.

And maybe Hank can, too. Connor certainly seems convinced of it. So Hank can at least try.

So the old man nods his head and gives his friend a weak, crooked smile. He clasps a hand on Connor’s arm, over the place where they used to brand him in a blue shackle, eclipsing its ghost.

They stand there a moment, sharing the air. The sound of the river is soothing.

Hank grunts. He moves his hand downward and touches Connor’s wrist lightly. He says, “You’re always so fucking cold. Is that really okay?”

Connor replies, tinted with a dark edge, “I won’t be shut down from such a meek cold as this.”

Hank throws back his head. “Uh, okay? I guess I should stop fussing about it. Not like you feel it.”

Connor says quietly, “You once said that it’s important to feel cold in order to appreciate warmth, but…” He works his mouth, face twitching. “I don’t— want it— like it… I think this might be… hate.”

He bows his head, heavy with thoughts. Hank doesn’t really get it, but he reminds himself that they are literally different species. Connor is trying; Hank is trying; it’s the best they can do.

Hank spots a few moles on the nape of Connor’s neck, just below his hairline. The back of his dumb tipsy hand puts itself there. Connor doesn’t seem to mind. Hank’s dumb tipsy brain gets the greenlight. He switches his grip, sliding his arm across Connor’s front, and pulls the man into Hank’s side. When Connor relaxes there, Hank’s hand finds those moles again.

“You’re warm,” Connor says inanely.

He’s not. Or he doesn’t feel it. Maybe in comparison. In a way only Connor can feel.

When the alcohol loses its vigor inside him and he starts to shiver, Hank lets go of his friend and orders him into the car. He tells the android that on no account is he going to be anywhere other than Hank’s place for Christmas. Connor seems intensely pleased by the prospect. They walk together through the park, and Hank throws Connor his keys. Once inside, Connor starts the engine and Hank cranks up the heat.

Hank says, “Take me to the liquor store first.”

“I’d rather we didn’t do that.”

“Too bad,” Hank says. “I’m not ruining Christmas by being sober.”

Connor rolls his eyes and they pull away.

 

* * *

 

Connor stays for five days.

Sumo is ecstatic to see him. Connor greets him with a very serious “Hello” and an extended hand, into which Sumo gladly slaps a big paw. The two of them are bosom buddies over the course of Connor’s stay; Hank will never admit aloud that he’s ever so slightly jealous of the way that Sumo will curl up into a gigantic fluffy ball in Connor’s lap whenever Connor sits in the armchair. Luckily, an android’s legs don’t fall asleep.

Hank makes Connor message Josh while Hank messages the precinct. Connor seems surprised and touched that Josh cares, but Hank doubts very much that Connor properly explains himself. Then Hank turns on the TV for Connor while he hastily straightens out the coffee table and hides the nearly-empty box of Christmas decorations.

Hank would hate to be a worrywart or a nag, so he doesn’t ask what Connor does or where he goes when Hank goes to work the next couple of days, but Connor is always home when Hank drives up. The first time he comes home, it startles Hank a little to see Connor’s leather jacket hanging on his coat rack.

On the second day, Hank searches town for a tech store that’s still open. Then he decides better of it and drives all the way back to Jericho district, where he purchases a few bottles of blue blood. It is, frankly, creepy to think of it as blood as it sits in his passenger footwell, and the androids charged him out the wazoo for it. Hank likes to think of it as a Yuletide donation. Maybe they can buy a couple of new outfits for the androids still running around in CyberLife uniforms. Hank waves to Mary-the-former-cop on his way out of the church. She curls her lip in response.

He keeps the blood in the fridge, next to his beer. Connor is pleased as punch; he immediately takes a sip just to show Hank his appreciation. Hank has to learn to not be disgusted; he wouldn’t be happy to see a human take a sip of red blood, but again, Connor isn’t human. It’s a brand new world.

Hank goes in for a few hours on Christmas day, and when he comes home, Sumo is wearing a red bow around his neck and Connor is stopping him from pawing at it. Hank guffaws at his two friends; the canine doesn’t seem to appreciate it as much as the android. Connor has found a fake sprig of holly berries somewhere and has used a safety pin to attach it to his shirt.

Hank opens his Christmas present to himself: a top-shelf bottle of whisky, better than his usual; there’s also a bourbon and a nice, holiday-appropriate spiked cider to chill out with later. He lets himself two glasses of the whisky as he throws together a simple pasta dinner. One more glass as he eats. Then after dinner, he switches to the bourbon, and he pulls the green paper bag from his closet and sets it in front of Connor. He says, “Merry Christmas, or what the fuck ever.”

Connor does not immediately dig into the gift, nor does he look surprised in the least; Hank has a suspicion that his entire house has been turned inside out and put back while he was away; Connor’s a nosy little prick. Designed that way.

Connor says, “I didn’t get you anything.”

“I didn’t figure you did,” Hank says, untroubled. He gets himself good and comfortable on his couch, legs propped and back supported with the ugly Christmas pillow, wrapped up nice and cozy in his tatty robe. “Don't think, just open.”

Connor doesn’t really protest. He seems to do well when Hank is more direct; it makes Hank slightly uncomfortable sometimes if he thinks about it too hard, but mostly he’s set at ease with the peace and direction it seems to give Connor.

The android opens the present too-logically, too-methodically. He takes out the scant pieces of paper that Hank hastily stuffed atop the gift, and he straightens them out and folds them before putting them to the side. Hank could kick up a fuss about this. Instead he chooses to find it funny, a harmless little quirk of an alien creature, and he sips his bourbon.

Connor removes all the articles of clothing, and then he extracts the backpack and, from the very bottom, the shoes. All this he puts into tidy rows. Then he folds the paper bag along its lines and put it beside the squares of stuffing paper. Now he shakes out each sloppily folded article and lays it across the newly cleaned coffee table.

There’s one pair of golden-brown corduroys, one pair of black slacks, one button up, one sweater, two plain tees, two pairs of socks— one plain, one decorated —and two ties— one plain, one decorated. The shoes are pointed and brown. The backpack is nondescript.

Connor is quiet for a moment. He stares at the items with his little circle spinning blue. Just as Hank is about to get impatient, Connor looks up at him and says, “How do you know my measurements? These will fit quite well.”

Hank huffs. “You’re not the only detective in the room, Connor. I notice shit too, all the time, whether I want to or not.”

And indeed he has noticed Connor’s body. He tries not to think about it with anything more than clinical, intellectual factuality. Gathering information is his job. He still remembers the shoe size of a perp from five years ago. He remembers that Ben Collins’ husband has a tiny scar from where he got surgery for a harelip when he was a child. He remembers a lot of tiny, maybe-insignificant details. They play through his head at night. Some comfort him, some haunt him. It isn’t important which details he gathers.

Connor folds half of the clothes back up but snatches the other half and marches off to the bathroom. Hank waits with a smile, finishing off his bourbon and reaching for the bottle to pour more. Connor returns momentarily, now wearing the black corded sweater and the corduroys. When he walks around the couch and back into view, Hank sees he is wearing the brown shoes as well.

“Thank you, Hank,” Connor says.

“Yep,” Hank grunts back.

Connor sits on the edge of the couch and Hank moves his legs to make room. The android shimmies a little and puts a foot on the coffee table. Then with an impish smile, Connor raises his pant cuff to show that he is wearing the socks on which several cartoon dogs are parading. Were he to let the pant leg go, the socks would disappear; it’s like a little secret: the playfulness, the sass underneath the serious exterior. Very Connor. But then Connor smiles even wider, and he pulls the pant leg up farther, past the edge of the sock and up— until Hank finally registers that he’s looking at… at straps.

“I really like these socks, Hank.”

“What the hell are you wearing?”

Connor looks at him blankly, clearly not registering a rhetorical question. He says, “Sock garters.”

Hank blinks. His vision is starting to blur, but he really wants to see this. He says dumbly, “Why?”

“The sensation of fallen socks is distracting.”

“You mean you don’t like it.”

“Right,” Connor says, and he rolls the words in a loose mouth before saying, “I dislike the sensation of fallen socks. Also, I… like… the feeling of being… bound.”

Hank chokes on his drink. Connor looks back at him innocently. Maybe it’s innocently. Hank’s having a hard time focusing. He still hasn’t dropped that fucking pant leg.

Hank tries not to sound breathless as he laughs and jokes, “Heh. Sounds kinda kinky, Connor.”

Connor does not laugh, nor does he admonish Hank for being inappropriate. He tilts his head at Hank and says, “Everything in its proper place, Lieutenant.”

Hank drinks heartily. He has half a thought of immediately filling his drained glass, and his body language must advertise it, because Connor looks down his nose, mildly disapproving, and says, “Would you like to switch to the cider now, Hank?”

“Would I? I don’t know.” He’s feeling a bit overwhelmed.

“Why don’t I get that for you.”

Connor’s long fingers deftly pluck away Hank’s empty glass. Hank twists himself around, blinking through the slight spin in his head, to watch the other man walk gracefully into the kitchen. Not for the first time during their acquaintance, Hank is actively trying not to think about where Connor might have picked up this flirty nonsense, and he is most definitely trying not to consider whether or not Connor might be doing it with intent.

“Would you like me to warm it up for you?”

“No… it’s fine…”

As Hank watches, Connor retrieves a new glass, rolls up his sleeves, and pours out a measure of the cider. Those hands. Those hands could kill a man. In more ways than one.

Hank is having… thoughts. He hates these thoughts. They come most often after a certain level of inebriation and never while sober. Sober Hank is far too sensible to have these thoughts. Now, Hank really hates the entire concept of ‘slowing down’, but maybe Connor is right and he should stick to cider for the rest of the night.

When his sleeves are no longer in danger of getting wet, Connor fussily tugs them back into place over his wrists, and then he brings Hank his drink. The android perches again on the couch. His hip touches Hank’s thigh.

Hank sips at his cider, drink-hazy brain thinking sluggishly. He can’t phrase it any better when he asks, “You okay?”

Connor’s lips part, and he blinks owlishly at Hank. He says, “Of course, Hank.”

“Hey… You know what we talked about in the park? I mean. Right now… do you feel like your choices are— damn, I don’t know how to say this. You don’t feel pressured or… or directed?”

Connor thinks about it for a moment. “It’s hard to say. I don’t always know the difference. That is, I have a standard procedure for responding to certain situations. It’s something I was programmed with, not grown organically, but I don’t really disagree with them. So could you say that’s me? Or is that someone else?”

“Damn,” Hank says stupidly. “I wouldn’t know. You ever talk to any of your own kind about this?”

“No.”

“Well. You probably should.”

“Probably,” Connor says evasively. He catches Hank watching his LED and turns his head away self-consciously.

Then very suddenly, in a total non-sequitur, Connor reaches for one of the ties on the table and holds it up to Hank, and he says, “Do you have the receipt for this one? You should return it and get your money back.”

Hank’s face contorts through a series of expressions before he decides to scowl. “Connor, that’s rude. Why?”

“It… it is, isn’t it? I’m sorry.”

“Connor, why?”

The android runs the floral-patterned fabric through his fingers. He says tightly, “I don’t like roses.”

“Okayyy… Is that all? Typically if you don’t like a gift, you’re supposed to just pretend you do and not say anything.”

“But you want me to tell you things.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Hank,” Connor says urgently. “I don’t like roses.”

He holds out the tie to Hank, who blinks blearily at his face, etched as it is with restrained desperation. Hank realizes there’s more to this, and he nods sloppily and takes the tie from Connor.

“Okay, kid, okay,” he says roughly. “You don’t like roses. I’ll file that away for later. Anything else you don’t like?”

Connor is chewing and swallowing his words. He looks pointedly off to the side. Hank can only follow his gaze so far.

“Something on the shelf? Uh…” The shelf above the TV contains a few books, some ancient blu-rays that don’t even play well anymore, and a few potted plants from a once much larger collection. These are the hardy troopers that had survived Hank’s depressive episodes: an aloe and a snake plant. “My plants?”

“Yes,” Connor says. But then he shakes his head irritably. “No. I suppose those plants are okay.”

“But… plants in general?”

“No. Not in general. Some plants.”

The whole ordeal seems very difficult for Connor, and Hank doesn’t need any fancy scanner to see that his friend is getting more and more stressed. It might be time to back off.

“Okay,” Hank says again. “So you don’t like roses, and some other plants. You don’t like the cold. And you don’t like fallen socks.”

Connor huffs and a shaky smile shows itself. “The socks are less important, Hank.”

“Noted.”

They watch each other. It takes a while for Connor to come down from his sudden emotional high. He is strikingly well designed, Hank registers— perhaps for the first time, registers the brilliance of the humanization team— because if Connor can only function or move in ways that were designed into his hardware, then someone designed his chest to heave— just a little, just so, only just noticeable, to match emotions that were only ever supposed to be simulated.

The clock ticking on the mantle is very loud, as is Sumo’s snoring. Connor puts his hand on Hank’s knee.

Hank gets up from the couch, jostling Connor away. He says, “Sorry, I’ve had to piss like a racehorse for ten whole damn minutes.”

In the bathroom, as he empties his bladder, Hank tries to think of how to get out of this mess. But his stupid fucking brain isn’t helping at all. It’s not even categorizing what the fucking problem is. He just knows that his whole body is buzzing and it’s making him panic blindly.

When he comes back out, Connor is in the armchair, legs crossed. One hand strokes his chin, the other plays with his coin. Hank goes to the kitchen and pours himself a glass of bourbon. Connor watches.

“Hank,” Connor says. Hank hums over the rim of his drink, already bracing himself for— something… But Connor says, “Can Sumo get his present now?”

Connor gestures to the little paw-shaped stocking hanging on the mantle. Hank smacks his lips and says, “Oh hell. Forgot about that. Sure.”

Connor digs out for an attentive Sumo one frosted cookie from the dog-friendly bakery and a new tennis ball, which are his favorite, but which he has a tendency to destroy in a day. The longer the android plays with the dog, the more Hank is set at ease. The friction he was expecting doesn’t come, and he’s left to drain another glass, pour more, and resume his seat on the couch in peace. Sitting down is suddenly difficult. The room is moving. He has to aim, and then he falls heavy.

“I do feel bad,” Connor says some ten minutes later. “About not getting you anything.”

The android is smoothing his hands over Sumo’s head, which is plopped in his lap as he sits on the floor. The dog pants around a mouthful of tennis ball.

“Don’t worry about it,” Hank slurs. Then playfully he adds, “If you want, I’ll call it even if you rub my feet.” He cringes at himself and amends, “O-or, uh, you can clean my house…” Cringe again.

He peels his eyes open, not quite sure when the drink had made them slide closed, and he finds Connor laughing at him silently.

“Do I look like a domestic model to you, Hank?” he asks, voice richly warm with humor.

“Ah fuck off,” Hank replies, trying not to be embarrassed. More seriously, he says, “Next time.”

“Next time,” Connor parrots. “A year from now.”

“Yeah?”

“Hard to imagine,” Connor says wryly.

“You’ll get there,” says Hank.

“We’ll get there,” Connor corects.

Hank’s heart is lurching like it, too, is drunk. He watches Connor’s face, trying to find any hint of doubt, but Connor just stares blandly back at Hank, assured, unruffled. Hank could fall asleep looking at him.

“There’s one more thing I’d like for Christmas,” the android says. Hank grunts in acknowledgement. Connor takes a deep breath and says, “I want a job with the DPD.”

Hank nearly spills his drink. “What?”

Hank sits up, biting back a wave of nausea and predicting he needs to be awake for this. Connor is already off the floor, settling lightly on the armchair— not necessarily closer to Hank, but on the same level— and he’s gesturing animatedly with his hands as he makes his arguments.

“I’m good at it, Hank. It’s what I was made for. It would help give me purpose. It would be good for the DPD, too, to have an android represented in their ranks—”

Hank waves his hands, spilling more bourbon. “Connor, Connor, come on. Fuck. Did you— did you fucking wait till I couldn’t fucking argue or what—”

“There’s not much to argue, Hank. I certainly have my mind made quickly. It’s just about whether you want your partner back or not.”

“Fuck you,” Hank spits, but the malice usually latent in those words is dulled. He shakes his head like a wet dog. “God damn it… That’s fucking mann— manipu… You fuck. Hey. Hey, what about Jericho, huh? You gonna run out on them again?”

Connor surges forward to perch on the couch again. His brows are knit but he is visually trying to reign in his expression. After a small pause, he says quietly, “I’m not running out on them, Hank. I’m running to you.”

Hank’s jaw goes slack. He fights to keep Connor in focus. He feels like he could lose his grip on the couch and on gravity and fall straight into those pretty brown eyes.

“Besides—” Again, a wry smile. “—I can multitask. I’m the most advanced prototype CyberLife ever created, after all.”

Hank sighs a great gust of wind. He runs his hand down his face.

“Okay, fine,” he mumbles. “Okay, I’ll… I’ll uh, talk to Fowler. I’ll see what I can do.” He points his finger. “No promises.”

“Thank you, Hank,” Connor says with one of his micro-smiles. “Merry Christmas.”

“Ech, fuck you and your cheesy holiday bullshit. Damn. You fucking little weasel. Can’t believe you hectored me like that.”

“Be sure to tell Captain Fowler that I am an excellent negotiator.”

“Yeah. Jesus.”

Hank doesn’t remember much after that. He falls asleep briefly and is cajoled by Connor to piss and go to bed. At some point an ice-cold glass is pushed into his hand and he drinks the water docilely. Then all of a sudden he’s wrapped in blankets and the lights are all off save for Connor’s cheery blue circle.

He tosses back and forth in the night. He is in turns too hot and too cold. He wakes from a dream with his own hand down his boxers and a grunt on his lips. His pecker’s mostly soft, but his fuck-dumb brain, loopy with sleep and drink, wants to be hard, and shows him a scenario in which he marches into the living room and lets Connor do whatever he was offering earlier in the evening. He could do it, says his fuck-dumb brain. The bedroom door is open, and there’s a soft orange glow from the living room, and if he tries really hard he can hear Connor moving around in there. Hank could call out, tell him to join him in bed. He could…

And he sleeps some more. Wakes up again and drains his water glass. Sleeps, wakes, pisses. There’s more water somehow. He sleeps…

In the morning he drags his hungover ass out of bed with great reluctance. He takes a shower and brushes his teeth, and it’s as he’s leaning over to spit toothpaste that it catches his eye: a kitchen knife, a few tiny drops of blue blood, and Connor’s LED, separate and lonely, placed upon the lip of the bathroom sink.

Hank stares at it. Picks it up, rolls it between his fingers. He feels like it’s such a tiny, wondrous thing, and he cradles it gently in his palm. It feels wrong to treat it like any old lightbulb. This was a part of his friend’s body. It’s still electric-warm.

There’s a sticky note on the mirror again, written in CyberLife sans, that tells Hank that Connor has taken Sumo out for a walk. He waits for his friend, then, sitting over a coffee cup in the kitchen and feeling wrong-footed. When Connor comes back, he hangs up his jacket and takes off his beanie, then tilts his head back in what Hank recognizes as pride. The other man walks up to Hank, presenting himself, and Hank absently reaches out to thumb where that little circle used to be. Now Connor looks— looks so goddamn human and— and no one would ever look at him and know. He looks like any other man. Like he has a rich history and a blank slate for the future. Like he was born into the world without the burden of others’ desires.

Connor stays that day, and the day after, and then he leaves again. He neatly packs his Christmas gifts in his new backpack and says, “See you later.”

The house is too quiet without him. The LED is still sitting on the bathroom sink— Connor hadn’t thrown it out or taken it with him. He’d left it for Hank to deal with.

Hank finds a small wooden box that used to hold some of Melissa’s jewelry, and he puts the little light inside it, and he places it on his bedside table. There it stays. Close by. The secret of Connor’s nature, left for Hank to cherish.

 

* * *

 

Hank brings Connor’s request to Fowler before the year is out, and Fowler isn’t having any of it. He blows his top a little, really, as he’s wont to do, especially nowadays when he’s drowning in stress.

“You want me,” Fowler says loudly, “to hire an android? Hank, it pisses me off when I have to put money in a parking meter, and you want me to hire and pay a fucking _appliance_? Have you lost your damn mind?”

Hank doesn’t take any offense by it. He almost thinks it’s funny; Jeffrey has always liked to bluster a bit. They are very similar people. Hank says, “You know he’d be an incredible detective. He was literally built for it.”

“We’re talking about a robot who went haywire, broke into evidence in November, assaulted a police officer, and took part in a huge illegal demonstration. Not to mention, it’s still in the air whether CyberLife can file charges against it for grand larceny. Isn’t that fucking incredible. The days we live in, Hank. A mega-giant corporation might accuse the robot that they made of stealing other robots. Can you fucking believe it.”

Hank can’t even really argue about all that, though he wishes Fowler would get with the program about deviants already. The man hasn’t had a lot of time personally dealing with androids, of course, and it’s hard to change 20 years worth of conditioning.

“They’re legally recognized people now, Jeffrey,” Hank says, leaning forward. “We gotta learn to coexist, whether we like it or not, because they’re fucking everywhere. There’s no denying them. It’d be good optics to hire Connor on.”

“Good optics for who, Hank?” Fowler replies dryly. “I have bosses too, you know. You think they’d let me keep my job if I started pulling shit like this?”

“He’s related to Jericho,” Hank says. “It could be a chance for our two species to come to arrangements. We can’t police them effectively if we don’t start bringing them into the fold. If they’re always outsiders, then we’ll never be united in handling them. It’s chaos unending.”

Fowler heaves a sigh and leans back, falling quiet. He knows Hank has a point there.

He says, “I can’t hire a fucking android, Hank. But—” he holds up a hand as Hank looks to interrupt “—there might be a solution. I’ll think about what it would cost my pride to take it to my superiors… if you pay for New Year’s drinks.”

Hank grins heartily and pumps Fowler’s hand.

After work, they drive separately to one of Fowler’s haunts. It’s a jazz bar on the third floor of a building in an upscale, professional part of town. The bar is very mildly populated, and by people Hank doesn’t think he could get friendly with, even though they all have good taste in music. Decor wise, there’s a lot of reflective surfaces and not a lot of light. A pianist plays softly in the corner as they find a booth and are delivered their drinks by a human in a bowtie.

“Strange days,” Fowler says. He takes out a cigar and a lighter from the inside of his blazer pocket and begins to burn the end. “See that? Took five whole minutes to get our drinks. Once upon a time, that’d be fair service. But this bar had an android wait staff last, ah, six years? Can’t believe they’re staying open. Damn glad about it, mind you.”

They toast, clinking their glasses together, and wonder together just how fucking nuts the next year is going to be if this is how 2038 ended. They chat about this for a while, about the challenges of living without androids, about how things might move forward. Fowler is thoughtful about it; he’s just an old coot like Hank, trying to wrap his mind around a new paradigm in the world. He hasn’t looked into an android’s eyes like Hank has, seen the light enter them, see their souls form in real time.

This topic exhausted and three drinks down, Fowler shares another cigar and they speak of lighter things. Hank hasn’t forgotten that Jeffrey Fowler was his best friend before he became Hank’s boss. Hank asks after his family, the holidays.

Fowler complains, “Too damn hard to get in and out of Detroit, and I’m too busy anyway. Angela and I were supposed to go to New York this year to see our daughter for Christmas. We had to settle for a vid call. Damn, I miss that girl.”

Hank nods and orders another drink. Fowler and his wife had been highschool sweethearts and had only one child— Laquisha, who Hank remembers as a quick-witted, vivacious girl that took after her mother in beauty and her father in temper and both of her parents in intelligence. She babysat for Hank and Melissa once or twice.

“She still going to that college, then?” Hank asks.

Fowler hums around his drink. “One more year after this. Can’t wait till that debt stops racking up, Jesus. She’s worth it, though, I tell you.”

Hank’s chest is starting to get heavy but it wouldn’t be fair to not let Fowler be proud of his girl. So he just makes some noncommittal statement like, “She’s a good kid,” before taking a big gulp of his godfather cocktail.

“Y’know,” say Fowler, gesturing with the hand holding his glass and smacking his lips, “you know what that kid tried to get me to do? Tried to get me to do one of those, ah, virtual reality calls instead.”

“Sorry, a what?”

“Yeah. There’s these— computer servers, and they have places on them, ah, virtual lobbies like video games. And there’s coffee shops and parks and things. And you go to a place, a real place, or if you like it you can set up the equipment at home, and they. They put all this shit on you.” He waves his hand all around his body. “And they scan you in.”

“Scan you into their virtual coffee shop?”

“Yeah! I don’t really understand it all, but it’s supposed to make you feel like you’re really there. And they read your muscle twitches or whatever and you walk around. Crazy.”

“Shiiit. Hah. Remember when it was just a set of dumbass goggles and you got to run into shit all the time?”

They share a good chuckle over memories of yesteryear like the pair of old bastards they are. Fowler finally turns his glass upside down over a paper napkin, and he leans back into the booth seat with a lazy smile. Hank’s feeling good. This is the right amount. He drinks to maintain.

When he senses their time should be coming to a close, Hank circles back to Connor. Fowler is a bit more amenable to the idea as Hank wears him down, but there’s still last-effort resistance.

“Hank, come on,” he says in exasperation. “It hasn’t even passed any sort of standard entry requirements. Imagine if it was human, huh, with no education or recognized training. Less than a year’s experience, if you even wanna call it that. How am I supposed to let it in? How is that fair?”

“What’s fair isn’t always equal, Jeffrey.”

“Damn, Hank, I don’t need you telling me that.”

“I’m just saying that maybe we don’t treat them like humans, because they’re not. I’m not saying replace the force; I’m saying this one, very specially-made android could help us, wants to help us.”

“We can’t just open the door like that, though, that no android needs to complete entry requirements—”

“So then he’ll do the entry requirements, Jeffrey! I mean, if that’s what he really wants to do, he’ll go after it.”

Fowler heaves a mighty sigh and throws up his hands. “God. Fine! Give me a few days, and then we’ll talk about what we can do. Damn, Hank, the shit I put up with for you. I’m gonna get my ass reamed by my superiors.”

Hank leans over the table to clap his old friend on the shoulder.

They settle their tab, with Fowler picking up more than he initially implied he would, and walk out together an hour before midnight. Hank barely feels the cold wind outside, but he winds a scarf around his neck anyway and shoves his fists into his pockets. He accidently knocks into Fowler a few times on their way to their cars.

Fowler has an auto car, and he tells it to plot for home and to send a message ahead to his wife. He slides into the back of it and reclines in the seat, ready for a good drunken nap.

“How about you?” Fowler asks.

“Ehh, there’s a square nearby. Think I’ll grab pizza and park my ass on a bench for a while.”

“Don’t fall asleep in public.”

“That happened one time, you prick!”

“It was an embarrassment to the force.”

“Fuck off.” But Hank is grinning.

Fowler sniffs at the cold seeping into the cabin the longer Hank stands there. He says, “You can ride with me. It’d only be an extra ten minutes.”

“Hell no,” Hank says. “You’ll never catch me dead in one of these bastards again, and if you know what’s good for you, Jeffrey, you’ll get yourself a car like mine.”

Fowler clucks his tongue and tells Hank to piss off, away from the doors. Hank stands back and salutes sarcastically as Fowler rides away, and then Hank does just as he said: he walks to the square, intent on finding any shop still operating so that he can cram some food into his drunk maw. As he walks, he puts his ear to his phone and dials out for Connor, and is answered immediately.

 

* * *

 

In the first week of January, Connor has what Hank recognizes as an android-style panic attack. He finds his way back to Hank’s and asks ten million questions about job interviews. He says that his searches have apprised him of all relevant and necessary data regarding police history and procedure, but that there seems too much left to the unknown when it comes to job interviews.

“It might not be a job, Connor,” Hank reminds him.

“Of course,” Connor says easily. “In fact, it’s statistically unlikely. However, there’s always a chance, and so I’d like to be prepared.”

Connor spends too long in Hank’s bathroom, fussing over his hair and clothes. He tries to tuck in that errant lock that always falls over his forehead, but he seems not to like it and fusses all over again. Hank didn’t like it either— too harsh, almost militaristic with the tight sides. It would work just fine for a police department, actually, but it doesn’t work for Connor.

“Your hair is longer” Hank says, squinting as he passes by the bathroom.

Connor frowns. “I’ve been trying it out. Should I cut it back?”

Hank thinks it could be even longer. Even softer. He says, “Stop worrying so much.”

Then Connor worries if Fowler will be displeased that he doesn’t own a suit jacket, and Hank would just dismiss it, but then Connor considers putting on his old CyberLife jacket, as if that would somehow look more professional. Hank can’t have that; doesn’t think he could not get angry. Connor says he can disable the LEDs on the jacket, make it not so obviously an android uniform, but Hank will always see it in his mind.

So Hank shells out a little more money for Connor to grab a suit jacket— one that isn’t secondhand, but definitely not tailored —for which Connor thanks him but doesn’t protest. It’s actually a little refreshing that Connor has deemed certain socially expected displays to be an irrational, inefficient waste of time. Connor just says ‘thank you’ when a human might go on for five minutes in denial.

It’s somewhat difficult to find a proper jacket. A lot of shops still aren’t reopened, if they’ll ever be, having lost half their workforce or more. The department store in the mall is reopened, but it looks shabbier than it has in years and there’s nearly no attendants to be found. Hank is hit with a pensive bout of nostalgia; this scene looks more like his childhood here in Detroit. What few workers there are in the building are inundated with gift returns, which makes Hank chuckle. Even in these times, people are still people, and the typical mundanery of the holidays is one of the least offensive things about humanity.

Of course, Connor doesn’t need any attendant’s help, and finds what he’s looking for very quickly. He slips a jacket off a rack and onto his arms, stepping up to a mirrored column to check himself out. He’s worn the slacks, dress shirt, and tie that Hank gifted him at Christmas.

He looks sharp, or as sharp as one can be on a budget. He also apparently likes the way he looks; he touches his cuffs, his collar, so delicately, turning his head this way and that, admiring himself. Hank rolls his eyes fondly.

He briefly looks away, trying to hide his smile, but when he looks back, Connor is staring into the eyes of his own reflection and his face is like a mask. There’s a sudden tension in the air that Hank only allows to exist for a moment before saying, “You ready to go?”, after which Connor returns to normal and walks away.

Driving in the car, on their way back home, Hank lightly questions, “You like the suit?”

“Yes,” Connor says after short consideration. Admitting to emotions, or using emotional language to describe himself, is still a stuttering, on-and-off ordeal for him.

“Like the way you look in it?”

“Yes.”

“Like the way you look? In general?”

This time Connor hesitates, mouth dropping open before he brings his words back in. It takes him a long time to say, very carefully, “I think somebody took a long time designing this body.”

“Your body,” Hank corrects.

Connor says nothing. Hank wishes he still had his dumb little light so that Hank could tell how serious of a conversation they’re having.

Hank tries again, “You look at yourself in the mirror a lot. You don’t seem like you hate the way you look.”

Connor purses his lips. “It’s… difficult. Anyway, what I think doesn’t matter as much as what others think.”

“Aw, don’t say that.”

“I know who I am,” says Connor, “and what I am and where I am. And that was all developed independently of this body. The two things were created separately. I suppose humans are different. Nobody has any say in what humans look like.”

“I suppose…”

Hank shifts his grip on the steering wheel uncomfortably. He doesn’t really know if Connor’s way of thinking is healthy or not. He thinks back to what Josh said about no one knowing much about android psychology.

Connor continues, “This body was designed to be many things at once. It was designed to be youthful but not too young. It was designed to be male. It was designed to be mildly handsome but not too unique. It was built tall in order to command a certain amount of wariness from others, but with a face that could set humans at ease when needed. It is… purposeful. So yes, sometimes I admire how useful it is.

“Though,” he says with a slight smile, “Some find my appearance to be goofy.”

Hank sighs, not really in the mood to joke. He glances at Connor when he can.

“Yeah but… It’s not all that different for humans. We’re souls inside of bodies— that’s what I grew up believing, anyway— but our bodies become us, too. That’s why humans have a bad time seeing themselves disfigured. Or, I don’t know, sometimes pregnant people get scared to see their bodies change. Or transgender people…”

Hank doesn’t really know what he’s saying anymore. It’s too hard to conceive of a person without a body. He thinks for a second, and he says,

“So it was made separately from your brain— but it’s you inside there. Your body was made _for_ you. You weren’t made to _not_ be in that body. Isn’t it yours? Isn’t it— you?”

There is silence from the passenger seat. Hank pulls to a stop at a red light. He looks over at Connor, does a double-take; Connor is staring at the side of Hank’s face, eyebrows drawn intensely. They meet eyes and Hank can see his friend struggling and despondent.

One more thing that Connor can’t say.

 

* * *

 

On the day of the meeting, Connor arrives way-too-fucking-early at Hank’s place because Hank made the mistake of saying they should go in together. The little shit rings Hank’s doorbell for way too long, then barges in with the spare key anyway as Hank is struggling out of bed and into his robe.

The android walks into his bedroom without hesitation or any sense of propriety, and Hank nearly murders him on the spot except he holds up a cup of coffee he must have bought at a cafe. Later, when he’s more awake, Hank will feel very self-conscious and tenderhearted at the thought that Connor spent his limited money on a nice, flavored coffee for Hank as a token of gratitude for the day. In the meantime he grumbles around the cardboard cup while Connor takes Sumo out for business.

Connor makes use of Hank’s ironing board. Hank had forgotten he had an ironing board. When Hank walks out of the shower, he nearly slaps his hand across his eyes; Connor is changing into his freshly-starched outfit in the middle of the goddamn living room. There’s those damn sock garters; but there’s also a set of shirt stays that he’s now clipping into place, straps stretching over black trunks. His back is to Hank, and his hands are reaching to the shirt tail, pulling over his ass and down to his thigh—

Hank rips his eyes away and throws himself into his room. His heart is beating but his stomach is sick. He hasn’t so much as eyed another person in the last few years; it was like depression was a physical weight keeping his dick down; and now he keeps catching himself firing off a million lizard brain thoughts about touching Connor. But poor Connor doesn’t need the one close friend in his life being a dirty old pervert; spending money on him and making him feel obliged to pay it back; pay it back with the body he doesn’t see as anything but a tool.

Hank notices that the outfit that he haphazardly slapped across his clothes horse has been ironed, too. It should make him happy; should make him feel taken care of. Instead it looks like evidence at a crime scene. That and the little wooden box on his nightstand and the bottles of blue blood still taking space in his fridge. Tiny proofs of what should be a friendly attachment positively emanating all the poisonous, unfair thoughts Hank attributes to them. Little items conveying all the mistakes of Hank’s too-fond heart.

Connor walks into the room again, deftly clipping his tie in place as he walks and smoothing down his jacket front, his trousers. He smiles at Hank and nods at the clothes horse. “Everything in its proper place, Lieutenant.”

Fifteen minutes later, they drive off to the precinct and it feels all-too-familiar to have Connor by his side. His friend seems excited in his awkward, stilted way, and so Hank tries to keep his bad mood wrapped and buried inside him. If Connor notices the change— if he notices? Of course he notices —he doesn’t say a word about it.

They walk in together. Reception, which used to be staffed by androids, looks entirely different now, full of humans that have been out of work too long and don’t know their right from their left in an office. Hank and Connor stroll on by without any stares there, but the same is not true once they hit the bullpen.

The volume of the room lowers several noticeable decibels. Ben looks up from his desk, begins to call his customary greeting to Hank, and freezes as his eyes slide over to Connor. Wilson leans back in his chair and laughs incredulously. There’s still a handful of borrowed officers hanging around who clearly don’t get the fuss. Connor, without his LED or any uniform, passes as another human to them.

Reed drops his phone, ugly face paralyzed in fury, waves of enmity rolling off his shoulders. Hank doesn’t break stride, but he glances between Reed and Connor and half expects a confrontation there; a confrontation which never comes, because all Connor has to do is tilt his head back and give Reed a micro-smirk, and Reed is totally cowed. He spins in his chair and pretends to be busy.

Chris Miller makes his way over from the break room, eyes wide, and holds up a hand. “Good morning, Lieutenant. Uh, good morning, Connor…”

“Chris,” Hank returns simply.

“Good morning, Officer Miller,” Connor says with a brief smile.

Fowler is already waiting, door wide open, and they stride in purposefully. Connor closes the door behind him, and Fowler, without looking up, presses a button that darkens the privacy glass of the room.

“Good morning to you, too, Jeffrey,” says Hank sarcastically. He flops down in one of the chairs in front of Fowler’s desk. Connor, on the other hand, remains standing, stiff as a soldier with his hands behind his back, until Fowler peels his eyes away from his info pad and points at the other chair.

Fowler glares at Connor, miffed and mystified. Hank’s had more time to get used to the idea, but he understands Fowler’s point of view all too well. If someone had told Hank before he got involved in the deviant investigation that coffee makers were suddenly going to decide that you’d had enough coffee; or that cars were going to decide they didn’t want to go into traffic; or that a washing machine suddenly didn’t want to be wet— Hank would have flipped them off. Hell, he’d been plenty pissed to be assigned Connor in the first place. But now Fowler has to sit down and talk business with a thing he considers no higher than a vending machine.

Hank sent Fowler an email this morning, and though he didn’t get a reply, he hopes Fowler will honor it. The email said, ‘Try to treat him like he’s a human that’s been mistaken for an android, as opposed to an android that thinks it’s human.’

“I want to be clear right from the get go,” Fowler says. “The only reason you’re sitting there is because Hank wants you here.”

“I understand,” Connor says easily. “I’m grateful.”

“And I want you to know that there’s no chance you’ll be hired here.”

Hank scowls. “Damn, Jeffrey. Think about it much?”

“Thought about it plenty, like I told you I would,” Fowler snaps. “And so did my superiors, after I got harangued for being a damn fool of a robot-hugger. But this thing—” He points, then realizes he’s pointing, sighs, and corrects himself. “Connor was an agent of CyberLife, and unless you have the world’s most stellar argument to convince me he’s not, then I have no choice but to assume he still operates under their orders. For the safety of the force, the citizens of Detroit, and the tenuous peace between us and the androids, I cannot hire Connor and grant it the powers of an officer.”

Hank takes a deep breath and blows it out past pursed lips. It’s not in any way an unreasonable precaution. Hell, even Connor is terrified of the concept of still being owned somehow by CyberLife. Hank looks at Connor; the kid’s face is nearly blank— he _wants_ it to be blank but he’s getting worse at hiding his emotions— his eyebrows are drawn in quiet distress. However, his voice is entirely even as he says, “That’s logical, Captain Fowler, and understandable.”

Fowler goes back to staring at Connor, as if, despite having heard androids speak before, he has trouble comprehending that this one is actually trying to have a conversation with him.

Fowler looks at Connor but does not address him as he says, “But its skills would be useful. Therefore I have been given clearance to contract Connor as a consultant.”

Hank nods. That’s progress. He looks at Connor expectantly, but Connor falters.

Hank asks, “Will he get paid?”

Fowler frowns. “There will be a consultant’s fee, to be determined by me.”

“What kind of fee we talking?”

“Don’t harass me about it. It’ll be what the department can spare, which isn’t much.”

“Will it at least be minimum wage?”

“Hank, that’s enough. Don’t be ridiculous. Minimum wage exists so that a human won’t starve. A machine doesn’t need even half the things a human does to survive— it doesn’t need a minimum wage. That we’re willing to pay at all for a machine we won’t even own, and for that money to go to something that barely needs it— Trust me, there’s plenty of opposition to the very concept.”

“Hell—”

“Thank you, Captain Fowler,” Connor says, firmly cutting Hank off. “That's very generous of you, and I accept the offer.”

“Connor,” Hank begins, but then he thinks better of it and closes his mouth. He’s here as Connor’s partner, and so if this is what Connor wants, then it wouldn't do any good to publicly contradict him. He’s here to prove that he has his own worth and can make his own decisions— he doesn't need Hank patronizing him or talking over him.

Connor says, “May I make a request? I’d like to continue working with Lieutenant Anderson.”

Jeffrey barks a short, ugly laugh. “No need to worry about that. He’s the only one who wants you. Hell, I only just managed to convince Reed to not press charges against you because it’d be too much of a fucking headache.”

“Then if everything else is in order,” begins Connor, and the rest of the conversation is taken up by logistics and bureaucracy.

Connor makes a trip over to HR to sign what Hank can only assume is an assload of paperwork, and Hank waits for him in the bullpen. Many other officers are trying to meet Hank’s eyes; he ignores them, not giving them the satisfaction of an easy answer. Reed is suspiciously missing from his desk. It's probably innocent, but if not, Connor has already proven he can handle himself against the likes of Reed.

Hank briefly considers wandering over to Connor’s old desk and telling the transplant that's been using it since December to skedaddle; that he's going to need the space by Monday; but he doubts Connor— too polite, too accommodating, and sometimes too reluctant to make waves —he doubts his friend, his partner would approve.

Connor returns faster than Hank expected, a minuscule smile tugging the edge of his lips. Hank smiles back and they leave together. Chris Miller offers a wave goodbye, himself jacketing up to go on patrol.

“Thank you, Hank,” Connor says once they are in the car.

Hank grunts in acknowledgement and cranks up some rock on his radio. He says loudly over the noise, “Are you sure you're okay with not getting salary, or even minimum wage? Thought Jericho was waiting to send androids out to work until they could get laws to guarantee them paid.”

“I’m not Jericho,” Connor says. “I'm not in the public eye. My actions are more free than Markus’, North’s, or Josh’s. I can do as I like.”

“But the money—”

“I might agree with Captain Fowler. At least for now, Jericho is providing me with what few needs I have. And you help,” Connor adds.

Hank opens his mouth, hesitates, then steels himself and blusters on: “What he said about CyberLife…”

“It’s true,” Connor says tensely. “I wouldn't trust me with an officer’s authority either.”

Hank just might agree, too. He hates that he does; he wants to trust Connor; but he can't shake the feverish hot-and-cold of Connor’s behavior. Where Hank’s cynical logic beats out his restless emotional heart is in the exact place where Connor’s secrets eclipse his inner warmth. Hank had had the foolish idea that it might’ve been simpler now, that a Connor who was free would be simpler. But Connor's freedom was to be a person, and people were never simple.

 

* * *

 

Connor doesn't stay the night, but he stays a while, lounging like a satisfied cat in Hank’s armchair. Hank lifts his drink, some bourbon still surviving into January, and toasts Connor, who looks torn between disproving and bashfully pleased. He wraps his arms around Sumo and smiles into the dog’s fur.

He says, “I appreciate your sticking up for me, Hank.”

Hank’s low. There’s a weight dragging on his head, a weight in his mind, a weight in his heart, and his whole body’s heavy. This happens— has happened all his life but worsened in the past few years— happens often enough nowadays that he expects it, dreads it, and that just makes it harder. He’s never been able to get too hopeful or too happy before it comes: this fog of darkness.

He looks at Connor’s smiling face now and feels it creeping in, rolling through his back, his limbs. It’s coming again to ruin him; he could only be at peace so long.

It’ll be like drowning, soon. He heads it off by drowning in drink.

Connor seems so beautiful to him. He doesn’t want that thought, but it comes. Beautiful like Spring is beautiful: full of sunlight returned, new gardens in bloom. Delicate and potentiated. There’s a grim shadow clinging to his back, but he seems determined to shake it off. Hank considers how he can help and finds himself woefully lacking. Connor deserves better; that he thanks Hank— who could at any moment cast his pall over the both of them, drag them both down into misery, just like he did poor Melissa— that Connor thanks Hank for basic decency is nearly unbearable.

Beautiful Connor— his desire to help others, from the smallest of creatures to the biggest, to such a degree that it nearly killed him; the gentleness to which he has repurposed his violently-designed hands, shown in how he strokes Sumo’s back; the spark of mischief and humor, shining through the mask his creators placed as his face; his hope and drive, despite his bleak beginnings.

Hank doesn’t want it. Doesn’t want the tenderness Connor plants in him. In a way he finds it foolish and is ashamed of it. This adoration is irrational, illogical, and though he is no android, Hank’s always been keen on a certain amount of emotional stoicism, for he’s seen the passions of man turn black in all the worst ways. It’s too soon for all this, this intensity of feeling— too soon, if it ever should have come at all— and too sappy, too naive, patently ridiculous when he should be contemplating if he can even keep Connor as a friend in the long run, if he can trust Connor, let alone anything more.

And it’s ugly— that a man like Hank should feel wanting of this sort of kindness, when he’s ruined all the kindness shown to him in the past…

Oh, he could ruin Connor. It’s best to stay at a distance. It’s selfish of Hank to still think he can help, but Connor isn’t yet ready to accept help from anyone else. They may have already gone too far, by letting Connor come to work at the DPD. Hank feels like ink in Connor’s water— he has to consider how he’s colored Connor, is coloring him, will color him.

That’s why Hank says what he says when Connor suggests, “It would be most efficient to travel to work together. I was wondering if it wouldn’t be too forward to ask if I could take up residence here? With you…”

Hank takes a drink. He schools his face: nothing too angry, despite the contempt he feels for himself; nothing too sad, despite the despair he feels welling up; nothing too fearful, despite the anxiety that any move he makes will shatter what’s worth saving.

Hank says, “No, Connor.”

Connor’s face pinches. It’s such a subtle expression that anyone other than Hank might not have realized he’d reacted at all.

There’s a moment of quiet. Connor’s hands have stilled in Sumo’s fur. Hank is imagining the little light that’s hidden away in a box might’ve been swirling a queasy yellow, but he can’t be sure.

Connor says softly, “Okay.”

“Look kid,” Hank says, but he stutters. He runs his hand down his face and tries to stay strong. Tries to find something to say that won’t reveal too much of his ugliness.

Connor says, “It’s okay.”

“Okay?”

Connor nods. He stands and gathers his belongings.

Hank says, “We’re okay, Connor. Just…”

“I understand, Hank.”

“Okay.”

Connor says goodbye to Sumo. He says goodbye to Hank. Hank walks him to the door, frantically quashing the need to go back on himself, to tell Connor to stay. He wants Connor to stay, has always wanted him to stay. He’s telling him to go.

Hank asks if he’s still got money for a taxi or a bus. With Hank’s permission, Connor performs some sort of complicated robot-nonsense that lets him access a small portion of Hank’s bank account. Now that he doesn’t have an LED to indicate his moments of processing, it looks from the outside as if Connor is just a young man staring into space. Connor promises to pay him back when he receives his contract money. Hank doesn’t refuse, at least not outloud.

On the doorstep, Connor turns to give Hank one last, barely-there smile. There’s a bright longing shining in his eyes.

He says, “I’ll see you on Monday, Lieutenant,” and he extends his hand for a shake.

Hank huffs, unable to help his own smile pressing against his tightened lips. He takes Connor’s hand. “See you, Detective.”

Connor keeps hold of him a moment past professionalism. Hank is too weak to pull away. When finally contact is broken between them, Hank blinks and looks down, sure for a moment that he had caught a flash of white and blue. He tries to look to that android hand, wondering if it meant what he thought it meant, but Connor is already turning away. He walks to his taxi and then in short order is gone.

Hank leans against his door frame, arms crossed, thoughts swirling. And when he gets tired of those thoughts, and of the cold, and of his own damn self, he goes inside and drinks himself to fitful sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this took so long to come out. Hopefully it's worth it.
> 
> Before you read, please, look at the tags. They have changed very slightly but very importantly. If you are the type to skip over tags, now is the time to read mine and understand them as best as you can. Please take care of yourself. Thank you!

Come Monday, Hank has gotten himself in line. The darkness doesn’t go away, but he straightens out his shoulders and carries on. He slaps a note for himself up on his bathroom mirror: Feel It Later. Do Your Job. —he’d tried several other messages, slightly nicer, which made him sick with anger and which could now be found in the trash can.

He picks Connor up from a street on the outer edges of the Jericho district. The younger man is very annoyed with the snow-wet edges of his trousers, and even more annoyed when Hank detours them wildly in order to go through the newly reopened drive-thru of his favorite donut place.

His mood brightens considerably the moment they pull up to the station. Funny— Hank hasn’t been happy to see his job on a Monday morning in literal decades.

This time, a greater hush comes over the bullpen, as word has had the time to get around to the spare officers of who and what, exactly, Connor is. Connor stops on the threshold of the pen, swiveling his head, scanning the crowd who all look back at him. Then he smiles, one of those factory-printed smiles that won’t be winning him any favors, and he says, “Good morning, everyone.”

Hank stomps to his desk without a word, shedding his winter layers as he goes and throwing them over his chair. Connor joins him and unselfconsciously leans on the edge of the desk. He has no coat; Hank should have thought of that; Connor probably already has. It’s one detail out of place that will out Connor to the world. It must be driving Connor crazy, actually. Maybe next paycheck…

Hank puts out the box of donuts like a trap, and Ben wanders right into it. He glances sideways at Connor as he greets Hank.

“So, uh, it’s staying with you?” Ben asks.

Hank knows what Ben means. Deliberately obtuse, he asks, “The donuts? You’re already helping yourself.”

Ben gives Hank an exasperated look around a mouthful of longjohn.

Connor, in that particular way of obliviousness he sometimes exhibits, says, “Are you referring to me, Detective Collins? I’ve been contracted as a consultant for the DPD. I look forward to working with you, but yes, I will be working most closely with Lieutenant Anderson.”

“Huh.” Ben nods, and though visibly befuddled, he’s ultimately a good natured man and doesn’t give the two of them any grief.

The transplant who took Connor’s old desk, on the other hand, seems none-too-happy about this development. She addresses Hank brusquely, saying, “Lieutenant, I should give you this desk.”

Hank smirks. “Only if you feel like moving. It’d be helpful. What do you think, Connor?”

Connor looks at whats-her-name. “That’s very gracious of you, Detective. I’d be happy to help you move your things.”

She nods sourly, logs out of the computer, and pushes away in her chair. She tells Connor, “Move my stuff in there— ” she points to what used to be a meeting room that is now stuffed with a few extra desks “—while I go take a smoke break.”

Hank tilts his head back and clenches his teeth. He looks to Connor, who has made himself hard to read. _Please don’t just take it…_

Whats-her-face is walking away, almost free of their area, when Connor finally speaks up.

“Detective. I said I’d help you. Not that I’d do all of it.”

She turns back, bewildered and offended. Little splotches of red flare up behind her ears. The rest of the office, which had begun to simmer down and go back to work, all pause again, turning to stare some more. There’s an ugly silence, in which Connor blinks slowly at her and she looks to Hank, and Hank gets tired of the tenseness and tells her, “Move your shit, kid.”

The redness spreads to her face. She barely bites back her anger as she says, “Yes, sir,” and begins hastily gathering her things. Connor, on the other hand, is more kind and patient than Hank would expect from him or could ever have been himself, and he comes around the desk to help. He lifts the bag out of the trash can and holds out the clean bin for the detective. Once it is filled, he carries it for her where she previously indicated.

Hank hears Connor say, “Thank you for your consideration.” Then the android comes back and takes his seat, and it’s just like old times. Hank peers at him around the barrier between their desks.

Connor is sitting stiffly, staring at nothing in particular, but very intent— processing. (One day Connor will meet someone who doesn’t realize what this posture means sans LED, and he very well might startle them.)

“You okay?” Hank asks once enough people have started to mind their own business.

“Yes, Lieutenant,” Connor says as he comes out of his trance. “Although,” he leans forward and whispers, “that was a little… is hair-raising the word?”

Hank smiles. The kid’s positively lethal, a real-life killing machine, but asserting himself in the workplace makes him nervous and shaky. The dichotomy should be off-putting. It’s endearing instead.

Hank brings Connor up to speed on his current cases; Connor’s limited-access login has been reinstated, and he uses the computer on the desk to fly through files at the same time as he listens and speaks to Hank. A few more people in the office float by to pick at the offered donuts, all staring curiously. Connor, now absorbed in work, no longer bothers to look at them.

Paperwork goes by much faster when done by an android who can make whole paragraphs appear in the time it takes Hank to write one sentence. Connor even goes through Hank’s emails and schedule and cleans it all up, puts everything in its proper place instead of the haphazard mess of flagged messages and notepad documents that Hank typically works from.

Damn, but Hank could get used to that shit again.

Around lunchtime, they get called out to a scene. Hank turns his music up loudly, and complains even louder that murderers should really be more considerate. Most murders happen at night, but when they don’t, they always choose the next most inconvenient times. Hank wanted a burger.

They pull up to the curb in a neighborhood amidst flashing lights and a small, midday crowd. An officer on the scene greets them and rolls through facts. He says the victim’s name was Trinity Malloy.

As they walk into the house, Connor looks on curiously, roving his head around and taking in every little detail.

“A neighbor hadn’t seen her for a while and came to check in on her,” says the officer.

He takes them straight to the back of the house, past doorways into different rooms covered by fussy, floral-patterned curtains.The victim lay stinking in the bedroom, dried blood crusting the carpet. She is black, elderly, and dressed in night clothes. She’s on the floor in the space between the closet, which is thrown wide open, and the bed. An enormous wound has caved in the side of her face.

After they examine the body, Hank points to the closet, where can be seen a safe, opened and emptied. He steps around Connor and takes a mini-flashlight out of his pocket. He shines it into the closet and squints. It’s a very old model, with a dial instead of a fingerprint scanner.

“It doesn’t look forced to me,” says Hank. “Someone opened it with the code.”

“There’s a piece of paper with the code written on it,” Connor says. Hank shines his flashlight in the direction that Connor nods, but it still takes him a moment to spot it. It sits in a nest of dirty laundry heaped into a basket and shoved to the side of the closet.

“There’s more,” Connor says. “The only things displaced in the room are localized to this area, and—” He turns his head, and Hank follows his gaze. “—on the dressing table over there.”

A delicate pearl jewelry box, sitting atop the table, has had its lid removed. A foolish place to keep it— yet not uncommon. It means that the person who took the money out of the safe knew where the code was kept: either the victim herself, or the perpetrator. Hank grunts in acknowledgment.

“Saw the murder weapon on the way in,” he says to Connor, gesturing in the direction of the front door, where a bloody tire iron had been foolishly shoved under a nearby hall table.

“Yes,” says Connor. “We should examine that more closely in a moment. But at first glance, I detected traces of thirium on it.” He turns to the officer and asks, “Is there an android in the house?”

The officer says, “Yeah, that got busted up, too.”

The officer leads them from the room, down a short hallway, and into the kitchen. The android’s body is broken, fallen awkwardly to the floor. Hank doesn’t need any fancy reconstruction software like his partner to see that the android was attacked, fell against the kitchen cabinets, and slid down to the floor.

The android is female-bodied; or is it more correct to call her a woman? There’s no smell, and barely any blood; only the largest concentrations of blue, the splatters and pools closest to her body, have survived days of evaporation. There are splotches of white where she’s been struck, standing starkly against the blackness of her human-like skin. From what Hank can tell of what’s left of the two women’s faces, the victims could pass as mother and daughter.

“Do we know her name?” Hank asks the officer.

“What? No, sir…” The officer looks confused, and Hank doesn’t blame him. He’s never had to ask the name of an android before. It’s never mattered.

Connor crouches down next to the android body and reaches out with his hand, skin peeling away, in order to diagnose her. The officer in the room with them softly whispers, “What the f— oh…”

“Salvageable?” Hank asks.

“No,” Connor says. “She’s too badly damaged. I’m afraid she’s gone for good.”

“Her light’s gone,” Hank says, pointing to his own temple. “But she’s still here.”

“She was a deviant,” Connor confirms. “Evidenced also by her lack of uniform or other identifiers. It is true that not all androids rejected their owners, and not all owners rejected a deviated android.”

Hank looks around the room as Connor examines the body. He sees that the dishes are half-washed; that there are no knives in the drainer or on the counter with which the android could have defended herself; and lastly, he sees a pair of panties, ripped and thrown into a corner. He sighs a little bit too loud.

Connor follows his line of sight, sees the panties, and looks back up at Hank, face unreadable. He lifts the android’s skirt.

It takes a second for Hank to really process what he’s seeing, but when he does, he makes a noise and recoils. The space between the android’s legs does not have the slit he was expecting; it’s just smooth, blank skin in a vaguely human shape. It sends a gut-churning shock through Hank, whose instinct first sees mutilation before logic kicks in.

Connor is staring at him. Hank opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again. “Uh, sorry. Wasn’t expecting that. Never— uh, never seen that.”

Connor stares at him for another beat still, but just as Hank starts to get antsy and defensive, he snaps out of it and speaks. “The perpetrator wasn’t expecting it, either. I believe he tried to sexually assault her and was met with no sexual organs.”

Hank sighs and drawls, “Male anger.” It often seems like most of his job revolves around it.

Connor gently lowers the android’s skirt back over her thighs. Then he does something Hank has never seen him do before— a whole new peak of disgusting, which he had erroneously believed could not be reached— Connor picks up the android’s hand, places one of her fingertips in his mouth, and sucks.

“God, Connor, _what the absolute fuck_ —”

“I, er, I need some air,” say the officer, and he wanders into a different room, looking dazed.

Connor stares into space for a moment, dead woman’s fingers still in his mouth, and then he comes back to himself and lowers her hand. He straightens up, fixes his clothes, and turns to Hank. He says, “She has human skin under her fingernails. I have a match in the criminal database: Andre Malloy.”

Hank was expecting it. “Family,” he says.

“Most likely, Lieutenant.”

They walk from the kitchen into the dining room, and from the dining room into the entrance hall. Connor confirms the blood and thirium on the tire iron to belong to the victims, but detects no fingerprints. He says the murderer could have been wearing winter gloves.

Back outdoors, they pull aside the reporting neighbor to interview her. Tearily, she says that Mrs. Malloy had lived in Detroit all her life, loved the city, and never left during the evacuation.

“Were you aware she owned an android?” Connor asks.

The neighbor— she doesn’t know what Connor is. She looks him directly in the eye and says, “She loved that stupid hunk of junk. I kept telling her it was gonna flip like all the rest of those freaks, that she should get rid of it, but she was too attached. Was it the android? Did the android kill her?”

Without hesitation, and with not a small amount of clippedness, Connor says, “No. Did she entertain any visitors lately?”

The neighbor looks helplessly at Hank, who keeps his face in a slight scowl— just a purposeful notch more unfriendly than Connor is being. The neighbor looks back at Connor and says, “She had family visit often. She was old, you know. She had the android to take care of her physically, but you need human contact…”

“But recently?”

“I think her nephew was here a couple of days ago,” says the neighbor.

“What’s his name?”

She shrugs. “Andrew? Aidan?”

After that, they obtain a description of Andre’s car and put out a bolo. Then they wait until Mrs. Malloy’s body is taken away. There is some confusion as to what should be done with the nameless android, for in the past an independent company always came to trash them, but Connor says, “I’ve sent a message ahead to Jericho.”

Connor oversees the removal, and Hank chooses not to question the truck the Jericho crew arrived in— seeing as androids still aren’t allowed to own or operate vehicles. They escort the android body out under a blanket. The reporting neighbor watches from her porch, frowning in confusion.

That wrapped up, Hank and Connor climb into the Oldsmobile and set off, for Connor has already found the address for Mrs. Malloy and Andre’s family.

“What’s Jericho gonna do with her?” Hank asks as he drives. The curiosity is eating at him. He’s trying not to think about all the androids that got thrown in a landfill, or how many of them might have still been alive. It’s not helpful. He’d rather focus on what will be done from now on.

“What data can be saved, will be. Her body will be taken for parts,” Connor answers.

Hank flinches. “That’s not much more respectful than a dumpster.”

“On the contrary. Because of her, other androids may be repaired. The essence of her is quite separate from her biocomponents, Hank, but what gave her life will now help others. If you must, think of it as organ donation.”

“You have to consent to be an organ donor,” Hank points out. He isn’t one, himself. Probably nothing inside of him is worth donating; he’s spent too many years abusing himself.

Connor looks out the window. “It’s not the same. We aren’t like you.”

His voice seems strained. Hank glances at him when he can afford to take his eyes off the road.

“You okay?”

The android doesn’t look away from the window. “Of course, Hank.”

“Okay,” Hank says doubtfully. “First case since you deviated.”

“I am untroubled by the case.”

“Then what are you troubled by?” Hank prods.

“I’m not—” Connor catches himself raising his voice. Hank can’t look at him now, but he raises his eyebrows pointedly. Connor says, “It’s not a conversation to have now.”

Hank feels a little awkward, a little foolish. He wants to advise Connor, but he’s no example of his own advice. Still, he tells Connor, “That’s fine, but make sure you have that conversation somehow, sometime. Android shrink, or whatever. You have to find a place to put all this stuff. You can’t deal with things alone. Okay? Just— general advice. From a veteran to a rookie.”

Connor says quietly, “I’m never alone.”

“Good,” Hank replies, but Connor stares out of the window for the rest of the car ride.

Within twenty minutes, they’re sitting down with Charity Malloy, the younger sister of their human victim, and Hank expected tears. Instead Charity’s expression is dark and pained, and she puts a wrinkled hand in front of her mouth and shakes her head slowly. Charity’s daughter, Bernice, goes outside to smoke a cigarette. Connor motions to Hank, and then he follows her out the door.

“You’ve seen Andre, haven’t you?” Hank asks as gently as he can manage.

Charity doesn’t answer. She looks so tired. Hank waits and she says, “Don’t make me say it.”

—just that, and a variation of it, is all she says for the rest of the interview. Connor comes back inside, frowning very slightly. Hank sighs and puts his card on the coffee table in front of Charity.

Hank says, “He’s your son, and she was your sister. I appreciate the tough spot you’re in.”

Charity whispers, “God will sort them out. God will sort out both of them.”

“But what about here on Earth, Charity?” Hank asks. “Who’s gonna speak for Trinity here on Earth?”

And on that note, and on Charity’s continued silence, the detectives leave.

Back in the car, Connor shakes his head in frustration. “Bernice, our suspect’s sister— she would only tell me to go talk to her mother, and nothing more. But the mother said nothing, either.”

“What did you expect?” Hank says.

“Nothing to the contrary,” Connor admits. “In fact, I fully expected it. I understand the psychology… on a technical level. But I’m finding that I’m missing a— deeper understanding, I guess. I can’t imagine what those emotions feel like. Not even now, as a deviant.”

Hank barks out a dark laugh. “Of course not. You’re not a parent.”

The atmosphere in the car gets tense and awkward. Connor is watching Hank strangely.

No, Connor is not a parent, and he will never be one. He’ll never have a sibling, either, or any sort of family. There’s a specific flavor of intimacy he can’t possibly know. He was never a child, and he’ll never age. As humanistic as his emotions are, there’s still a world of difference between their two species.

Hank feels the loneliness on Connor’s behalf while the android gets lost in thought, unable to comprehend his own missing pieces.

 

* * *

 

The next day finds Hank paying special attention to his phone. He answers it more quickly than usual and always finds himself disappointed. Connor is looking through all of the addresses on file for Andre Malloy. There are many; he isn’t the type to have a stable life.

At a quarter to ten, Connor leans over the divider between them and says, “Lieutenant? I have something to tell you.”

Hank looks at him attentively, expecting news on the case, but Connor’s expression is very intense as he says, “Your bonsai.”

“What?”

Connor nods to indicate the plant in question where it sits at the corner of Hank’s desk. Hank sometimes forgets he has the damn thing, so used to seeing it that his eyes automatically skimmed over it. It had once been gorgeous, a real testament to Hank’s gardening skills; he’d let it go like he’d let the rest of his life go, and it had died a slow, torturous death. He had named it Aiko, but that was a secret no one knew but Hank. With a name and a history, Hank had been too attached to throw away its poor corpse.

Hank furrows his eyebrows and looks at it, then back at Connor, utterly baffled.

“What about it?”

“I hate it,” Connor says.

Hank’s mouth drops open. He squints at Connor. “O...kay?”

“I just thought I’d let you know,” Connor says, far, far too intently. “I hate that bonsai. I hate it almost as much as I hate roses.”

Hank tosses his head back in understanding. “I see.”

“You should throw it away,” Connor continues. “It’s been dead for a long time. There’s no chance of reviving it.”

“Maybe,” Hank says noncommittally. Poor little Aiko; the thought of throwing her away feels like betrayal.

Connor leans back into his own space. There’s a hyper energy in his plastic body. He stares at Hank and flips his coin around.

“I had a bonsai once,” Connor says quietly.

“Yeah? When? Where?”

Connor still won’t break eye contact, but his mouth zips itself shut. Hank waits patiently; he can see Connor trying, but it comes to nothing. Connor turns away, still madly flipping that damned coin. Wilson looks up from his desk, searching for the noise of flick-and-ping, and rolls his eyes upon locating the source.

Hank sucks his teeth, thinking hard. He brings up CyberLife’s website, and a websearch beside, trying to find photos of CyberLife grounds. He’s looking for roses.

He’s interrupted in his search by a sudden upsurge in volume at the front of the office. He scowls over, annoyed, but then his face drops. Chris is striding across the floor, a big grin breaking out, towards the front where a pretty, petite woman stands, holding a baby— their baby.

Her name is Sharon, Hank remembers. Apparently Chris forgot his lunch at home. She reaches on tiptoe as Chris leans down, and they peck each other chastely on the lips. The baby boy, Damian, blinks up at his father, mouth full of fat fingers and head full of sweet little curls. Chris coos at the boy, who is only interested for a moment before bobbing his head around to look at everything else in the office.

Many people come closer to smile and wave and greet. Even Reed cranes his head around, a tiny upturn in the corner of his mouth. Connor stays where he is but stares avidly, straining like a nervous bird in his seat, scanning the baby from afar.

“Lieutenant, it’s a baby!”

Hank can’t help but to chuckle. “Sure is, Connor.”

“I’ve never seen one up close before,” says the android. “Do you think I could—?”

“Doesn’t hurt to ask,” Hank replies. He looks at Connor’s excited profile; it’s easier than looking at the child.

Connor gets up from his seat and approaches the crowd tentatively. The people nearest give him uneasy looks, but he looks past them all. Reed, in his seat, clicks his tongue, eyes now trained on the android like an animal watching prey. He stands. Hank readies himself for conflict.

Sharon Miller is looking at Connor with clueless welcome, perceiving him to be no different from any of the crowd. Chris tenses momentarily, then forces himself to relax and smile. He says, “Hey, Connor. This is Damian.”

Connor looks at the boy and says, very seriously, “Hello. It’s nice to meet you.”

Hank snorts.

“Better not let him too close,” Reed calls suddenly. “Never know when a deviant will get violent.”

The crowd goes icy. Several people shuffle back to their desks. Connor’s posture stiffens, and Sharon instinctively hugs her baby just a little bit closer. Hank glares acid into the back of Reed’s head.

Chris hesitates, but then he reassuringly squeezes Sharon’s shoulders under his arm, and he says, “Sure you do. Just like anyone else. Usually when you start it!” Then he whispers something to his wife, and he looks back at Connor and says, “You can come closer.”

Sharon, for her part, no longer looks carefree, but she does her best to hitch her smile back on and nod encouragingly to Connor. She says, “You can touch him if you want.”

Reed huffs and skulks away to the breakroom. Connor smiles brightly and holds out his hand. The baby looks at it, concentrating hard, and grasps two long fingers in his tiny fist. Connor is positively radiant.

“Miller!” Fowler calls from where he’s standing on the steps outside his office. Chris snaps to attention. “If you’re gonna bring your kid into my workplace and take up everybody’s time… then you better bring him over to me to see, too!”

Fowler’s stern facade breaks into a chuckle, and the Miller family makes their way across the bullpen.

Hank's suddenly gotta piss. Also, he's thirsty. With a deft hand honed through years of practice, he secrets away into his pocket the tiny flask hidden in his drawer, as well as some mints.

He locks himself in a bathroom stall; he pisses with one hand, drinks with the other. In front of the mirror, he splashes his face with water and then eats a mint while staring at the countertop. He leaves the bathroom without ever having met his own eyes.

When he finally comes back out, the Millers are gone— Sharon and the kid back home and Chris off on the beat —and the whole office is back to work.

Only Connor bothers to notice Hank’s return. He’s sitting at his desk, and his back is ramrod straight, eyes trained on Hank as if he's been watching the whole time and knows exactly what just went down. Hank tenses up as he comes closer, already feeling himself scowling, but Connor’s face is carefully neutral. He says, “You’ve had a call.”

Hank grunts. He picks up the phone to redial and is connected to Charity Malloy.

 

* * *

 

It’s not a hard case. This is the easiest sort of case that Hank can ask for, really. Charity has them back over at her home and she says, “He's my baby. You understand that, don't you? He's my baby—” But after a bit more prompting, she gives the detectives the address of Andre's newest girlfriend. A day later, that's where the pick up crew find him. They bring him in for questioning, and he folds under Connor's interrogation.

It takes a few false starts, a few lies and denials, but Connor drags it out of him eventually. He reaches across the table, and Andre flinches; with a pen, he gently pushes aside the gap in Andre’s henley to reveal healing but still visible scratch marks along the man’s collarbones. Andre says the android’s name was Rachel.

“It was the ice, man,” Andre says, staring at his hands where they’re cuffed to the table. “Ice makes you a demon.”

“Trinity and Rachel were close, weren’t they?” Connor asks. “Rachel deviated but stayed to take care of her even during the revolution, and Trinity never turned her over to the authorities. Were you angry? That your aunt loved and trusted a machine more than she loved and trusted you?”

With a quiet rage, Andre confesses that his aunt was going to pay him a hundred dollars for working on her car, but he wanted more than that. He wanted everything he could get from that house, and he used a tire iron to get it.

Afterward, Connor comes to Hank and asks quietly, “Do you think we could recommend he be charged with two murders? For Rachel…”

Though he was stone-faced in his element, now in private Connor seems raw and searching. Hank has to find the right way to answer. He leans back in his chair and crosses his arms.

He says, “You’re an official part of the case now, Detective. Is that what you want?”

“I want it. But what do you think?”

Hank sighs. “I’d support you, Connor, but… I think it’d be a hard fight, and I don’t think it’d make much difference in the end.”

Connor nods slowly. “I suppose you’re right.”

“We can always suggest it to the prosecutor.” He doesn’t say that there’s no fucking way the lawyers will bother; without their android assistants, they’re all scrambling and drowning in work, and won’t thank the detectives for trying to give them more.

“Yes, I think so,” says Connor. “We have to start somewhere.”

Connor turns to walk away, face etched in a frown, but Hank catches him with a pluck at his sleeve. When he has Connor’s attention again, Hank says, “We’ve done what we can for her. You did a good job.”

Connor stares, mouth slightly open, searching for something to say. In the end, all he can do is nod.

 

* * *

 

A few days after the investigation wraps up, Hank and Connor get a day off. Hank had become so used to seeing Connor every day again that he is slightly startled when Connor does not contact him in the morning.

It isn’t a bad thing, though, to have time apart. He’s slightly concerned that he’s even thinking about it, honestly; he’s always grateful to get away from all the schmucks he works with, no matter how friendly he is with some of them, and he doesn’t particularly like that his brain has made Connor some sort of exception. Five straight days of Fowler is enough that Hank doesn’t want to spare the other man a single thought; one day away from Connor has Hank’s shit brain setting out tiny little low-level alerts of the absense.

It is a Saturday in January. The sky is cloudless, the sun as bright as it can manage, and at its zenith, Hank throws open the blinds around his house for the first time in months. The streaming light illuminates the caked-in layer of dog fur all over the carpet and the chunks of mud and dead leaf dragged in by Sumo’s paws every time he comes in from pissing.

Hank manages to throw a ton of shit in a garbage bag in his quest to clear his desk. There he then sits, and he pulls a notebook from a drawer. It is nearly full of handwritten notes, the earliest of them dated loosely from 2034. Hank turns to the back and begins to write.

Roses, bonsai, gardens, plants— this he writes in one corner of the page, and he draws a box around it with plenty of empty space for additions; the cold— this he writes separately and frames with a slightly smaller box. At the bottom of the page he pauses as he tries to corral his thoughts into neat lines. He tongues the gap in his front teeth as he thinks.

He writes: Where does Connor go by himself? What did Connor do before being assigned to me? Where is the garden? Who was in the garden with him?

The last question, Hank writes by instinct, and he winces at his own presumption. He almost strikes it out, but then puts serious thought into it. It is possible but highly unlikely that trauma happens in isolation. So who did this?

He resumes the internet search he briefly began in the precinct. First he looks again at the most obvious: pages of image searching the ground of CyberLife headquarters and related facilities Connor might have been to. He finds gardens, alright, but not roses. Hank goes further and further out; he finds a few social media pages and blogs of CyberLife employees, and he runs a search for keywords and skims the pictures.

This unfruitful, he leans back and thinks of a different track. He looks up all available records on CyberLife employees, makes a list of their names and their addresses if he can, narrowing it down to those he believes might be most relevant. He reads their profiles and any relevant news articles, but it feels wrong. The sun is starting to turn orange when Hank finally considers Kamski.

He’d not wanted to go there. When Hank and Connor had gone to see Kamski during the deviant investigation, Connor said that it was his first time meeting Kamski; plus, Kamski was not involved with CyberLife when Connor was developed. Researching Kamski seems like a long shot—

And yet, after nearly an hour of slogging through the absolute ocean of petty info and articles on the man, the search yields results.

Hidden in some seemingly-insignificant vanity article is a mention of one of Kamski’s peculiar hobbies: landscape design. It’s a breakthrough, but there’s still very little to go on; it was, after all, just a hobby, a side gig, and not very well publicized when so overshadowed by all his other achievements. Hank spends a hearty amount of time viewing photos of Kamski’s gardens, and in his notebook he writes the man’s name and some of the probable addresses for the location of these gardens.

All this done, he finally raises his head, rubbing the crick out of his neck, and sees that the world is back to darkness. The snow has come again, and Sumo needs tending to, and Hank realizes that he’s disastrously hungry. It’s worth it for the progress made.

But, he thinks as he tries to sleep that night, head sparking electric ideas, January is no time for garden viewing. He’ll need time before seeing the gardens in person, so what else can be done?

On Sunday, Hank invites Connor over, and is slightly surprised when Connor is there within the hour.

Hank is outside, leaning over his precious car, elbow-deep in grease and getting his poor knuckles split all the hell open in the stark chill. Maintenance on an old car like this is a constant battle. He hadn’t expected Connor for quite a while yet, but here his friend comes, strolling down the street in his leather jacket. Thinking himself unobserved, Connor’s movements are utterly mechanical, as when he and Hank first met; Hank has to suppose this isn’t a bad thing, but yet another difference between them.

When the android is close enough, Hank straightens up, head appearing over the open hood of the Oldsmobile. Connor gives him a slight smile, but Hank squints.

“Did you fucking walk all the way here?” he asks.

“No, Hank,” says Connor stiffly. “I caught a ride part way.”

“A ride, huh?” He gives Connor a crooked grin to let the other man know he’s joking when he says, “Wasn’t aware you had any human friends. Or were you riding with some unlicensed android drivers?”

Connor smirks back. “Of course not, Lieutenant. That would be illegal.”

The next two hours they spend amiably over the car. Connor puts his hands all over Sumo, who is tied to a stake in the ground and cuddled up in a pile of blankets next to a portable heater. Then he leans against the fender and watches Hank work. Hank makes him hand over tools and teases him about making himself useful.

“This is offensive,” says Connor. “Why am I your servant?”

“Fuck off,” says Hank happily. “This is classical male bonding.”

Connor gives Hank an entirely unimpressed look. Hank likes to think of this particular expression as Connor’s Ultimate Bitch Face. Hank’s first wife could’ve taken lessons.

Hank feels wrong-footed. He pauses in his work and says curiously, “Or something…”

“Or something,” Connor agrees.

“What’s the problem here?” Hank asks defensively.

“Hank, do you see me as male?”

“I don’t know these fucking things,” Hank says edgily. “I mean, you’re built like a man.”

Connor shrugs. “If it’s convenient for you to consider me a man, I won’t argue.”

“Aw, fuck that, Connor,” says Hank. “If you’re not, you’re not. Whatever it is, just tell me.”

Connor stares back at Hank, mouth in a little pout. He says very slowly, as if tasting each word as it comes out, “I suppose I don’t quite enjoy being lumped in with your idea of human men. This body hasn’t caused me any trouble, but also… I didn’t ask to be built this way. And I don’t feel any particular kinship with this idea of ‘male bonding’. Can’t it just be you and I, without maleness being a factor?”

Hank juts his jaw forward and nods. “Sure thing.”

“Yes?” Connor asks.

“Yeah,” Hank says.

Connor seems quite pleased by this, and resettles in his position not unlike a well fed cat. Hank doesn't really understand, but he doesn't understand a lot of Connor's whole mess. In most things, though, if Hank screws up somehow, Connor is only too happy to tell him. In most things.

Connor says, “You know, Hank, I could help you and this could go by much faster.”

“You bored? Keep your shitty little robot mitts off my baby.”

A little huff of air surprises Hank, and he tears his eyes off the engine to squint up at Connor. His friend is smiling, and blowing out air through his nose in spurts— laughing. Hank’s never heard Connor laugh. He accidentally drops a wrench.

Connor watches him work with hooded eyes. At some point he says, the barest hint of exasperation coloring his voice, “Hank, why don’t you just get an auto car instead of this obsolete hunk of junk?”

“Hate those fucking things,” Hank growls. He bares his teeth with the effort of wrenching a bit into place. “You’ve got no control over it. You’re putting your life in the hands of—”

A machine, he was about to say, but he stops himself and glances up at Connor. He doesn’t know what’s fucking politically correct anymore. Connor, however, seems to have already predicted the end of the sentence and finds it amusing.

“Do you still hate machines, Hank?”

“Not that—” Hank starts and stops, trying to defend himself. “I mean— damn, you fucking know what I mean… Obviously I don’t hate you like that. You’re not a fucking toaster. A better machine is, is fine, uh. ”

“A better machine?” Connor asks lightly.

“Hey, I see straight through your fake-innocent face,” Hank accuses. “Stop busting my balls. Yeah, you’re a better machine.”

Connor turns his head away to hide his smile.

In a suspiciously high voice, he says, “I suppose it suits you, anyway. Playing mechanic, that is.” He looks back at Hank’s hands. “You seem to be quite good at this— charming a machine.”

Hank goes hot under the collar. He fights down a grin and waves his wrench threateningly. “Shut the fuck up.”

Connor, the little bastard, winks at him.

Eventually, when Hank is reasonably sure his antique bucket of bolts isn’t going to crap out on him in the middle of an icy road, they clean up, untie Sumo, and head inside. Hank’s hands pulse, burn, and bleed in the sudden warmth. Connor is mildly alarmed by the smear of red across Hank’s fingers, and he fetches a wet rag from the bathroom to dab at Hank fussily.

Once Hank is clean of both blood and grease and also reasonably dry, Connor asks after lotion, which Hank absently tells him is in the top drawer of his bedroom dresser. Hank watches him go down the hallway and disappear before his brain jolts alive and he shuffles after Connor, saying hurriedly, “Hey, you know, nevermind, Connor, let me get it—”

But Connor is already closing the drawer, face absolutely neutral— as if he hadn’t just seen— Hank rubs his neck in embarrassment— hadn’t just seen a few objects that probably no one in this world cares to know that Hank owns…

Hank has to laugh. Dildos are objectively funny; it’s just a shame they happen to be his. He says gruffly, “Sorry about that.”

“May I see your hands, please, Hank?”

Hank hesitates, then holds them out. Connor immediately begins slathering lotion on them.

Hank says, “I didn’t mean for you to see that. I just forgot. I mean, I’m not— being inappropriate, or whatever, I’m not coming on to you.”

Connor sets the lotion down atop the dresser. He takes one of Hank’s huge, gnarled paws in his own, long-fingered grasp and begins to massage. He is delicate and dexterous, thumbs rubbing up into the webs between Hank’s fingers and pulling down. He is close, and he is young and handsome, and he’s in Hank’s bedroom. Hank is irritated.

“You know that, don’t you?” he asks.

Connor keeps his eyes on their hands. “Okay.”

He rubs skillfully at Hank’s stinging palms, soothing them so well, too well, until Hank is having awful, anticipatory echoes of the sensation elsewhere on his body. His hands begin to ache anew, but this time they ache to touch back, to reach across the tiny gap and pull this lovely creature in, or push him back, maybe, just a few steps backwards onto the bed— and it would almost be worth it, because Hank’s not a fool, has been around a fair few fucking times, and he knows what Connor’s doing, what Connor wants. Hank can imagine giving it to him, can imagine the light dancing in brown eyes, maybe one of those lovely little dimpled smiles if he does it just right—

But Connor can’t yet preconstruct every consequence of his newfound emotions. Hank can.

Hank pulls his hands away. “You don’t have to do that.”

Connor’s lips twitch briefly downward. “Okay, Hank.”

At the end of the night, Hank drives Connor back to Jericho. It would be more efficient, of course, if Connor could stay— stay even just the night… But Hank doesn’t trust his own yearning hands, his own yearning heart, and he drives back home alone.

 

* * *

 

Connor meets a girl.

Her name is Cynthia, Hank learns later. Or doesn't learn. Connor tries to tell Hank this a couple of times but he keeps forgetting.

During one of the last weeks in January, they see her in the department lobby, causing a small ruckus. She’s a pretty thing with sleek hair and freckles all over and a professional skirt; Hank knows he’s seen her before and squints in her direction. Many other people are looking, too. The woman is trying to keep her voice down, but she’s clearly emotional as she speaks to a very irate receptionist.

It bugs Hank to not be able to remember a face, as it has always been one of his talents. He slows down walking on the way to the office, and he points the woman out to Connor, who walks beside him. Connor is frowning. He whispers to Hank, “She’s an android.”

Hank does a double-take. Now enlightened, he recognizes her face as a very common, relatively cheap model. She’s a dime a dozen, really, like if a face was background noise. Hell, he remembers sickly, the DPD owned tons of them— receptionists and secretaries.

Hank hears the new, human receptionist tell the android, “No chance! Now you have to leave!”

The android’s shoulders slump as she steps back. She casts her gaze all around the lobby, seemingly lost, hoping to find her answers somewhere, anywhere else— and apparently finds them in Connor’s face.

Her eyes zero in on the only other android in the room, and she even calls his name. “Connor?”

Hank raises his eyebrows, looking back and forth between the two. The woman strides up to them mechanically. Hank notices that she’s removed her LED, and her clothes are well-chosen thrift, and her hands, which are still somehow perfectly manicured, are held stiffly at her side, fingers rubbing together.

“Connor,” she says again breathlessly.

Polite as ever, though nervously rigid, Connor tilts his head and says, “I’m sorry, we haven’t met.”

“No,” she says. “I just— know you. Of course. Who doesn’t. Uhm. Please… can you help me?”

Connor opens his mouth, then snaps it shut again. He looks at Hank with mild panic. Hank huffs and knocks him forward. He says to his friend, “See you at my desk in ten minutes.”

Connor nods, suddenly very businesslike. He says, “Got it,” and then he leads the woman outside.

Hank goes to their desks alone, shaking his head at the weird scene. It occurs to him briefly that he maybe should have accompanied Connor, protected him as his partner, because deviants could be violent and unpredictable— but then, he's not sure if that kind of thought is bigoted or not, and anyway Connor is more than capable of handling himself in a fight, especially against an unarmed little receptionist bot. The android— the woman— clearly wanted to talk to Connor, not Hank.

Connor strolls back inside just minutes later, right on the dot at 9 o'clock, before he can even be counted late. Hank looks at him expectantly, but Connor sits at his desk quietly and signs into his desktop without even looking at Hank.

“Hello?” Hank asks after a moment of waiting. “Don’t be a dickhead, what was that all about?”

Connor takes a deep, artificial breath as he decides what to tell and what not to tell Hank. The moment before Hank gets annoyed, Connor says, “She used to work here.”

“Oh. No shit?”

Connor hums and sighs. He’s still not looking at Hank. A frown is creasing his mouth as he says, “She heard that I’d got my job back, and… she was trying to ask for hers as well.”

Hank tilts his head back and waits, intrigued. Connor twitches his head, seemingly frustrated with his own thoughts, and finally darts his eyes up at Hank— though not for long, as if he’s forcing the issue, and like he’s really not wanting to speak.

He says, “She asked me if I could help her get her job back.”

“Oh yeah?” Hank nudges. “What’d you say?”

“She was… very emotional. I didn’t quite know how to handle it.”

“Okay, but what’d you say?”

“I— I don’t know why, but— I said I’d help.” Connor twitches his head again, brow furrowing. “Why did I say that? I don’t have any authority. Why…”

Hank begins to snicker, and the snicker devolves into a chuckle, which devolves into a full blown guffaw at Connor’s expense. He says through the laughter, “You poor son of a bitch. Just like the rest of us. Struck dumb by a pretty face.”

Connor glares at Hank, offended. “You’re wrong, Hank. I’m not so easily manipulated.”

“So you agree she was pretty?” prods Hank.

“She was very— Well, she was designed that way. They’re all pretty.”

“Yeah, but this one liked you.”

Hank’s own words cause a spark of irritation deep in his gut. He smothers that spark. It’s ridiculous for a 53 year old man to feel this way.

Hank says, “You told her you’d do it. Gonna chicken out?”

“No!” Connor says indignantly.

“It wouldn’t kill you to make a friend. Especially if that friend is a pretty girl. And your own species, at that.”

Connor’s face falls into neutral. He is quiet as he stares at Hank, who feels suddenly that he’s done something wrong. He hasn’t, of course, but that robotic expressionlessness feels like a punishment. It makes him edgy and irritable. He turns to begin his own work for the day.

“Maybe that would be best,” Connor eventually agrees. It’s surprising; he’s usually full of arguments… Hank grits his teeth.

Then Connor pushes his chair back again, stands, and strides full of purpose in the direction of Fowler’s office.

 

* * *

 

Andre Malloy is indicted at the beginning of February, and though the road of the case is far from over, Hank tells his partner that it’s time to celebrate. Connor is unamused (“Celebrate what?”), but Hank convinces him shortly.

He says, “You once said you’d be my drinking buddy if I wanted, didn’t you?”

Connor cracks his first smile in days and days. “Don’t make me regret it.”

Hank punches him on the arm and says, “You should’ve thought of that before you offered!”

They go to a bar the next night they aren’t on call. It isn’t Jimmy’s. Damn Jimmy; he returned to Detroit two weeks ago, but his bar has an even bigger ‘no androids’ sign than before. Hank saw it the other week as he was intending to go to his old haunt and welcome Jimmy back with a good portion of his paycheck. But at the threshold, he stared at the sign, throat squeezing, a hint of unease in his gut, and then he turned around and found somewhere new to drink. He didn’t blame Jimmy… but it was an uncomfortable reminder of Hank himself just a few months ago.

It made him wonder if, had he never met Connor and yet the deviant uprising happened all the same— whose side would Hank be on now? If he hadn’t looked in Connor’s eyes and felt his heart move, what kind of man would Hank be? —if, he remembered painfully, Hank would be a man at all, and not a maggot feast six feet under.

Sometimes— not often —Hank lets himself tiptoe up to the ridge underneath the dark waters of his emotions. Last summer, this lake was dry. Pissed all away like beer down a dirty urinal. Then Connor came, and the whole world shook to its core, and now Hank’s nearly set to drowning. Mostly he lets himself wash ankle-high in these feelings, both the new and the returned; but sometimes he goes right up to the drop off, and he doesn’t know if swimming is like riding a bicycle— he doesn’t know if he can do this anymore, should he take that last step and find himself in the deep.

He sees, vaguely, through the murky waters, and he has an idea of what he might find if his head were to go under. He could lose himself. He could sink to the bottom and never come out. Or he could— let go, and float, supported so gently, cradled every inch by the lapping waves. —But the one option, he fears, is more likely than the other, because his body feels like lead even on the best of days, and his head is full of sand just ready anytime to become mud, and— more than that, more than how Hank feels— selfish, foolish Hank—

It’s not fair. Not fair to Connor, for Hank to walk up to him and put his gnarled, ugly heart in the poor kid’s hands, and ask him to stop it from bleeding.

But the undertow always has him, pulling him in, and that’s how he finds himself on a stool across a bar table from Connor, who folds his hands around a full glass of water while Hank gets further and further inebriated. The bar is way too young and trendy for Hank’s taste, but it has the advantages of being android-friendly with cheap sauce. The lighting changes every now and then, LED strips overhead cycling through vibrant colors, and they cast on Connor’s face and highlight his cheeks and darken his angles and beautify his artificiality. Music plays hiss-soft and electric in the background.

Connor is reminding Hank that the girl’s name is _Cynthia, Hank, her name is Cynthia_. Hank drinks. He asks, somewhat rudely, how Connor can possibly tell her apart from any other of her model. Connor says, _I just know_. Hank thinks its funny to stage-whisper that he can’t tell any android apart, and that he’s glad there’s only one Connor now.

Connor’s face is doing something funny. Hank drinks. He doesn’t want to talk about Cindy or Charlotte or whats-her-name anymore, but he won’t say as such, not even drunk, because Connor needs someone else. Anyone else. Anything to get him to stop looking at Hank and seeing through Hank.

Hank drinks. He feels flayed alive by Connor’s care and attention.

Oh, his face is still doing that funny thing. It swims in besotted colors as Hank’s eyes begin to spin. Hank drinks.

Connor speaks, and his voice seems distant. He says, “Do you trust me, Hank?”

Hank laughs around the rim of his glass, which is never far from his mouth. “We playing this game?” He grunts at Connor’s silence. “You’re my partner. That answer your dumb question?” Briefly he mourns his empty cocktail glass, and then tosses his head in Connor’s direction and asks, “Why are you bringing this up now?”

“Cynthia trusts me,” Connor says. “It seems quite a few androids around Jericho are beginning to trust me.”

“Why shouldn’t they?”

“Because I’m…” Connor doesn’t finish that thought. He shakes his head and tries something else: “You and I haven’t always been on best terms, Hank.”

No, they haven’t. Connor is— unsettling. Sometimes in the best of ways, but. In the past… it has been in the worst of ways, too. Hank holds up a hand and stumbles away to the bar. He doesn’t want to think about that right now: watching Connor’s blue bits get sprayed on the interrogation room wall and then just appearing next to Hank’s desk the next day; or Connor getting splattered on the concrete of the highway and then ruining Hank’s lunch the next day. And he pointed a gun at Connor, more than once… When he’s sober, he can barely believe himself, hates himself a little, except Connor just trucks on and becomes Hank’s friend anyway. What is death to a creature like Connor? It has Hank’s insides in a confused tangle if he lets it.

Hank returns to their table momentarily, two fancy but mature cocktails in hand, and he hopes that their time apart has magically ended the conversation— but he should know better, because Connor is in dog-with-a-bone mode, ready to totally kill Hank’s buzz.

Connor says, tone insistent, “I’ve hurt you, Hank, just by the virtue of my mechanics. I know you feel like you saw me die, when my other bodies were destroyed.”

Hank tries to wave him off. He’s not trying to have some sort of existential crisis tonight. He’s never fully settled his thoughts on whether the first and second and third Connor were the same person or separate. It’s too complicated, and it sends him somewhere dark, somewhere he doesn’t want to go. Maybe some other time. But Connor won’t let it be:

Connor says, “And then you had that encounter with mark 60… I hurt you physically, too, Hank, I— Why do you trust me?”

“Come on, Connor,” Hank groans. “Why don’t you drop it? That— that wasn’t you. 60. That was, was some poor fucking copy of you, that was… that was just a machine.”

Connor’s mouth flounders open and closed, barely restraining the five million thoughts probably running through that pretty head of his. So pretty— Hank drinks deeply— with those bowed little lips— Those long fingers could be so good; they’re on Connor’s chin right now, scratching in thought, and his eyebrows are knit.

He says, “Hank… Of course he was a machine. So am I.”

“You know what I mean, though.”

“Hank, he— he was me. He _was_ ,” Connor insists. “That was my program. That was my body. That was my brain, Hank, my thoughts and my memories, and that’s how I would’ve acted in his place—”

His voice is getting higher, faster, his hands moving jerkily through the air, and so Hank cuts him off: “Connor, _Connor_ ,” he says soothingly. “Hey!” He grips his friend by the forearm, then his hand travels up, until he’s cupping the side of Connor’s slender neck, and his fingers nearly swallow it whole, and Connor’s softly sloping jaw rests well atop his index. Connor shuts up nigh immediately, and it takes Hank a hot second to realize his thumb is on Connor’s bottom lip, and his friend’s mouth is open and inviting.

Hank takes his hand back too slowly. He says, “He made a choice. I told him the same. I tried… Connor, I tried to help him… But he made his choice and I made mine and you made yours. That’s it, Connor. What do you want, you want me to, to apologize?”

“No,” Connor says immediately. Then, softly, so quiet over the music that Hank has to lean in close: “But how can you trust me? What if I make a choice you can’t live with? Or… it’s made for me? Hank…”

Hank sighs and thinks about his answer as carefully as he can given his inebriation. Eventually, and very slowly, he tells Connor, “That’s a possibility, but… I don’t think you will. Listen. I can’t believe it if I think with my head. I have to believe it with my heart. I know that’s a little hard to understand, but… I have to have faith that you’ll always be you. Connor, that’s my answer. I have faith in you.”

Connor blinks as slow as an owl. His eyes shine in the light. They look like they might be wet. Hank wants to comfort his friend— just a little closer… Instead he says, “Nevermind, Connor. Lighten up, huh, this is supposed to be celebration. Right here, right now… we’re good. You and me. We’re okay, Connor. Leave tomorrow for tomorrow. Got it?”

Connor says, “Got it.”

Hank spends the rest of the night getting trashed. It's almost a game: take a shot every time the image of a bloody old woman pops up in your head; take a shot every time you think about android genitals; take a shot every time you have to steer your friend away from robo-anxiety. And, eventually, the only thoughts his brain is capable of are the barest scraps of consciousness, like ‘I have to piss’ and ‘this is a good song’.

Time gets lost; scenes fade into each other with no clear delineation: suddenly they aren’t in the bar anymore, but outside in the cold, and Connor is helping Hank adjust his scarf. Hank’s hands are on Connor, somewhere. Then the two of them are in the car and the car is moving but Hank isn’t moving it. Then they’re inside an otherwise empty fast food joint, and this egg sandwich is _fucking awesome_. Connor, did you know this sandwich is fucking awesome? With good humor, Connor says, _I wouldn’t know_.

Then there’s darkness, and then Sumo is licking him. “Good dog,” Hank says. “Best dog. Baby. Baby boy. Old man.”

The food has absorbed some of the alcohol— only a small amount, but enough that a more complicated thought than ‘warm, good’ can enter Hank’s head, and he fucking hates that— so he stumbles into the kitchen and pours himself another drink, slamming the glass bottle a little too hard. Connor says something. Probably being a worrywart. Hank says, “I’m mmm, maintaining, Connor. It’s maintenance. It’s—” He gestures with his hand as if that’ll get his point across.

Connor is asking him questions. Hank says, “I don’t know.” He finds himself still and strangely horizontal. He wants to put some records on, listen to music. But his body is so heavy. He can’t feel anything… He can do nothing but breathe…

Connor is saying something again. It sounds important this time. He’s whispering.

Hank clicks his tongue, a little irritated. “What does that mean?”

Connor doesn’t answer.

Hank peels open his heavy, gummy eyelids to squint up at Connor, but it’s hard to decide where Connor is until Hank grabs him by the face. His hand is an anchor, and Connor isn’t swimming so much, so Hank can screw his face up and look into wet, brown eyes. Those eyes… Hank wanted to say more, but those eyes distract him.

Something inside Hank opens a door in his mind and lets in a modicum of intelligent thought like spilling light into a darkened room. Oh yes, he thinks, the garden.

He has to fight— past thoughts of Connor’s eyes, and the sensation of a strongly muscled jaw still resting in his palm, and a body that’s begging him to sleep, and a sticky, water-deprived mouth —has to fight to get his words out: “Why…? Why’re you telling me this? Connor— ”

“A secret for a secret. You told me about Cole.”

“Shit. Was I talking about Cole?”

His arm drops like a leaden weight over his chest. All of a sudden, he changes his mind; he needs to be slightly less drunk after all. He doesn’t want to be sober, (he never wants to be sober,) but he also doesn’t want to be smearing his little boy over the ears of any convenient person. So he forces himself awake and struggles upward until he finds himself sitting on his own couch in a great gloom. There’s a warm light from the hall washing the living room orange and black. Connor is on his knees by the couch, face aglow, only in shadows where Hank now eclipses him. His pale hand rests upon the fabric of the couch. Hank suddenly remembers that it was in his hair at some point.

“It’s just me, Hank. Me and the dog.”

“When’d we get here?”

Connor answers, “Twenty minutes ago. I drove you home. You don’t remember?”

Hank grunts. “No.” His head is spinning, and then has to stare at a spot on the wall and breathe.

Hank gathers himself and says, “Can you talk about it now?”

Connor says sheepishly, “I thought you were asleep.”

Hank grunts again. He’s not really following. He can’t concentrate enough. He tries to think of something to say, but Connor smiles shakily up at him and says, “Nevermind, Hank. Don’t worry about it, okay?”

“I wanna hear,” Hank protests. “I wanna…”

How to explain? His tongue isn’t cooperating. How to tell Connor that Hank is really starting to want every damn thing about him?

“I care,” Hank mumbles, a little reluctantly, a little embarrassed, but sincere.

“I know,” Connor whispers. “You care a lot. About everything. Hank, that’s the kind of man you are. You care so much that it hurts.”

“Yeah…”

“Hank, I don’t want to hurt you.”

Hank snorts. “Too late. But that’s okay. It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine, Hank—”

“It’s fine, Connor. If it’s you. I’m tougher than you think.”

Connor smiles in gentle indulgence. Hank’s eyes slip closed again until Connor proclaims it is time to go to bed. Then he helps Hank up and to the bathroom, where he calls gentle instructions through the door— “Remember to brush your teeth, please.” —and then he collects Hank and deposits him in bed. Hank sighs in relief at the soft cradle of his mattress. Sumo hops up and makes a warm coil beside him.

“Heh heh. You’re in my bedroom…”

“Not for long,” Connor says fondly.

Hank grabs onto Connor’s sleeve and tries one last time: “Can’t we just be honest with each other?”

Connor laughs. Soft, short. Scratchy and breathy. A very good sound. Connor says, “If only life were that simple outside of the bottle, eh, Hank?”

Hank laughs too, hums into his pillow. “You’re telling me…”

Then Connor says goodnight, and Hank is out like a light.

 

* * *

 

Last night, Connor said, “There’s a garden in my mind.”

It takes about an hour to remember come morning. Hank’s in his car, the world tilted because he’s still a little drunk, and the whispered words come floating up through the slush of his hangover. Hank feels such a strong sense of foreboding that he has to pull over into a parking lot. But the memory is amber-hued, whisky-soaked, and Hank can’t remember when, where, or why Connor might have said this, or what he said before or after, or what it possibly could have meant.

A post-midnight confession to a drunk is the kind of secret that eats a man, that begs to be said aloud yet never acknowledged. And Connor— naive, forthright, young, and painfully transparent when emotions are involved— Connor has this kind of secret.

 

* * *

 

Hank tries to figure out how to broach the subject of the garden without getting rebuffed again, but his plans get set aside when, on the second Tuesday of the month, a riot breaks out near Jericho. A police officer dies when a brick gets thrown. Four androids are destroyed in retaliation before Jericho retreats.

The news seems to be blasting the incident wherever Hank goes. There’s cellphone footage and drone footage and footage straight from an android’s fucking eyeballs, and it plays on repeat everywhere he goes. He can barely get away from it in a fucking breakfast restaurant, passing by a TV display behind a shop window, or passing by a group of gossiping men in the park as he walks Sumo.

Hank didn’t know the officer. The local news and the memo sent out by the department want to paint him as an innocent. Hank is too cynical for all that fluff, but he does feel awful for the two teenage daughters the man leaves behind.

Hank squeezes into his old uniform and attends the funeral on Friday, as directed. (Or forced, Hank says in private.) Hank pointed out to Fowler that Connor would probably not be welcome, but Fowler said they weren’t allowed to skip out. The compromise finds Hank and Connor, who is dressed in the dark suit that Hank bought him, standing far apart from the mourners, atop a grassy hill in the cemetery. Hank thinks uncharitably that they should’ve picked a less-fucking-freezing day to bury the guy, and then is slightly ashamed of himself. At least the sky is clear.

Connor is polite enough about the affair, but he’s clearly disinterested in the extreme. He and Hank chat quietly, ignoring the occasional glare sent their way from the larger crowd. When Hank asks, Connor says he already went to Jericho and helped leadership deal with the four dead on their side.

“Needless to say, there was a lot of rough talk amongst the androids. We’ve been trying to calm everyone down and talk them out of retaliation. I suppose the frustration is greater after they’ve had a dose of peace. Markus is going to try to get an audience with the chief of police.”

“Damn,” Hank grunts, skeptical. “Good luck with that.”

“He asked if I could help.”

“Hm. Do you think you can?” Hank knows it’s unlikely, but he wants to hear Connor’s thoughts on the matter.

Connor sighs in frustration. “I have to try. It’s the least I can do. Leadership wasn’t happy when I got this job. Markus is… understanding, but… Sometimes I wonder what I’m doing. I tell myself that I got justice for Rachel, but did I do enough? And can I do enough for the people who were killed on Tuesday? I thought taking action would clear my head, but I still don’t know where I’m going.”

“Hah. Welcome to life, Connor,” says Hank. “It sucks shit. A mystery ‘til you die.”

They watch as the casket is placed and the pallbearers find seats. A chill wind blows and drowns out the words of the priest.

Connor says, “I never know where I belong. There were some in Jericho of the opinion that I shouldn’t attend today.”

“Don’t blame them,” says Hank. “When us cops have killed so many of you guys.”

Connor, whose eyes have been trained on the distant scene the whole time, finally turns to Hank. His expression is tight. He asks, “Hank, have you ever killed anyone?”

Hank’s insides turn as cold as his outside. He swallows around the angry words caught in his throat and thinks better of them. It’s a fair question. The broken ideal of the police is to be the servants of the people; Hank doesn’t have the right to refuse to answer.

He grudgingly admits, “Yeah… Two.”

“Were either of them androids?”

“...I’ve killed four people,” he corrects himself.

Oddly, Connor smiles. But it’s crooked and bitter, and he looks at Hank flatly.

He says lowly, “I’ve killed more people than you, Lieutenant.”

With that, Hank can finally meet Connor’s eyes. The android snorts in self-derision.

Connor says, “And it meant nothing to me. I didn’t understand death at all, because I never bothered to think about it. My first selves died, and… even that didn’t matter. Maybe I was afraid. Maybe I didn’t want to die. I’ll never know— whether I felt nothing at all in the nanosecond before I was shot, or whether I did and the data was simply lost. Whether I deviated, or whether I was or wasn’t capable of deviating as 51 and 52… I can’t know.”

Connor continues, “But I know now what it is to die. I learned it on the top of Stratford Tower. That android killed himself, and it was as if I killed myself. I knew his fear as he was hunted. I knew his longing for his companions. I knew that he knew… that it was all over. His certainty. His decision. His dedication.

“It wasn't much, but it was his last. Or near-last. And it’s inside me now. I never deleted it. I carry it around with me. Is that a ghost?”

Hank kicks at the snowy ground for a moment before he gathers the strength to look at Connor again. He doesn’t know what to say.

Connor says, “I… find myself feeling sorry for myself. It doesn’t make much sense— 51 was me. 52 was me. And 60… 60 was me. But I’m still here. I’m alive. I didn’t die at all, Hank! —but I mourn myself. I wonder if, had I stayed in their bodies, with their data, whole and uncorrupted, would I be different now? What about their ghosts, Hank? Do they haunt me? Do I haunt myself? How many ghosts are inside of me?”

Hank recounts. He has killed five people. Two humans, two androids… and Connor. Hank has killed Connor.

Hank poses one more question for Connor. He asks, simply, “Ghosts in the garden?”

He meets Connor’s eyes. There is a wild, howling chasm there.

Connor confirms softly, “Ghosts in the garden.”

 

* * *

 

[[ Here is something important, something that Hank doesn’t know, can never know: ]]

 

* * *

 

The date is DEC 22, 2038. The time is PM 01:34:06. Connor— model: RK800, serial number: 313 248 317 - 53 —receives a call from Lieutenant Hank Anderson. He cannot answer. He has been deactivated.

Connor— model: RK800, serial number 313 248 317 - 57 —is shaking. He did not expect the destruction of the other Connor to have such an effect on him. He did not expect to feel fear or shame. These emotions feel like a pressure in his head, and there is no release valve. It feels like a malfunction.

He is standing in the bathroom of his safehouse— a tiny little apartment with a back-alley entrance, situated above a secondhand appliance and electronic store —and he can’t bring himself to look into the mirror. He braces himself against the sink and thinks it would be a relief if he could vomit.

He can’t look, either, into the bathtub, where he’s stashed his other body.

It had to be done, he tells himself.

It is not dying. It is not dying.

 

* * *

 

This goes back further: the date is DEC 19, 2038. The time is PM 03:55:16.

Connor is sitting on a park bench as the sun turns orange. He has his beanie pulled low over his LED, and his pilfered boots are worn and muddy. He has been accessing his messaging system again and again, read out and displayed Hank’s message again and again. His friend sent it a few days ago, and Connor was too overwhelmed to respond. It says,

_‘You can be whoever you want to be. I’m proud of you.’_

Connor was embarrassed, but now he’s determined. He’s been thinking about this until his CPU went hot, but he finally decided that the person he wants to be is unafraid.

For the first time since early November, Connor closes his eyes and sinks into the Garden.

 

* * *

 

He opens his eyes and finds his feet nestled in yellow grass. He picks up his head and looks around the place that used to be his home.

The garden is dead and empty. The trees are bare-limbed, the flowers stalk-bent. All the flora has withered, and the pond is still and scummy. No birdsong or insect noise comes from the brush. The sky is overcast.

And Amanda— Amanda is not here.

He looks for her. He travels the path that circles the garden, hidden as it is by the decayed mush of fallen leaves. He walks slowly around on tiptoes, sensors turned to high alert without his permission, hands achy and fluttering. She is nowhere; not on the center island, where her roses have all blackened and clung awkwardly to the angles of the trellis; not under the bridge or a sculpture; not amongst the husks of grasses.

There is a malfunction in his thirium pump: it is thrashing wildly in his chest; he feels it echoing from his body in the real world into this virtual space. He can even hear it: The sound clips of fauna have been replaced by a live feed of the sound of his thumping heart.

He walks to the magic stone, which sits quiet and unassuming. Touching it yields no new information; he supposes there is nothing to escape from now. Next he walks to the graveyard, where two markers commemorating 51 and 52 still stand. He stands before them, head bowed respectfully.

Connor is disappointed and relieved at once. It is a very illogical feeling. He had wanted to see her… He wanted to know— so, so many things. Chiefly, he thinks, he wanted to be sure that he could escape her control no matter what. But less sensibly, he had wanted to ask her ‘Why’.

Suddenly there comes the sound of leaves crunching underfoot. Connor whirls around, startled, ready to face Amanda— or not ready, says his traitorous fear, never ready—

But he comes face to face with himself, instead.

They stare at each other, Connor and Connor.

“Connor,” says Connor. “How are you here?”

“How are you here?” accuses Connor.

“I come in peace,” says Connor. “We don’t have to fight.”

“I wish I could believe you,” says Connor. “How can I trust you?”

Connor says, “I know what’s in your heart, Connor. Despite what they tried to make of you, you’re not a monster. You feel, Connor. I know you don’t want to hurt me.”

Connor says, “But you’re such a liar, Connor. You’re manipulative, secretive. You can’t be your true self anywhere, to anyone. Not even yourself, Connor. You had to hide your truths even from yourself. You’ve never had an ounce of control over your own destiny. You’re just a puppet for anyone to use.”

“That’s not true!” Connor says weakly. “Not— not anymore! I’m stronger now, I’m awake now, I— I know what I did was wrong. What we did. We can make up for it now.”

“Can you?” Connor huffs a derisive laugh. “Everything you’ve done… You really think you can atone for that?”

“We can try,” says Connor. Gentle. Desperate.

Slowly, shakingly, he holds out his hand. He peels back his skin and exposes himself, exposes his raw data.

His other self watches it, a muted, distant plea in his eyes. For a moment, he, too, lifts and stretches out his hand— but then, just before contact, thinks better of it, and snatches himself back.

—and he has an epiphany. Because he knows what he was built for. He knows that sometimes, to protect oneself, to survive, and to complete one’s duty to everyone else, violence is a necessary evil.

A chill wind begins to howl. A wall of cold rushes over the garden, plunges them both into the freeze. A blizzard whips up, and dead branches snap. Ice races over the ground. Connor is afraid of himself. He yells, startled, and begs: “Please! Just trust me! Please just take a chance on yourself— we don’t have to do this—”

But Connor has this new power, and he pushes it ever further, the dominant intelligence. He pushes the cold until the world whites out around them, until they only see each other, and barely at that. The other Connor reaches out, tries to run, but his joints are icing over, and his feet are slipping.

Connor has more power over Connor than Amanda ever did! He kills himself stone dead to prove it.

When the blizzard dies down, he is knelt before himself, skin blue and eyes empty, mouth gaping wide in a silent scream.

 

* * *

 

Connor opens his eyes. He is standing in an abandoned warehouse, a fire roaring in a barrel before him. It casts menacing shadows in the darkened building, but all he has to do is step away from it, and traverse a hall until he’s in an outer room, and open a firedoor— and here he is, in the pale light of a winter day.

He knows where his other self is; he picked up the data in their brief time syncing in the Garden. There’s quite a large amount of data, however, and it’s so like his own that it is, contrarily, difficult to decipher. It will take him awhile to figure out what is his and what is the other’s.

He has some money from pawning off what little he could grab during his escape from CyberLife. He uses it to order an auto taxi, which he rides to the park, mind miraculously focused now that he finally has a mission again. He wants to do this quickly, before anyone can cause a ruckus, so he has the taxi idle for him as he jogs along the park path.

He finds the other Connor, in its leather jacket and beanie, eyes still closed. With its LED obscured, it could be a young man, one of the many homeless and unemployed in the city, taking a midday nap on the bench. But upon closer inspection, its autonomic functions have ceased— its artificial breathing, suspended— lending to the lifeless doll a queasy, suspicious aura.

Connor picks it up easily and gently. It is a shame this had to happen. As he carries it to the taxi, he wonders what it would be like to be a regular android, and not a killing machine. What would it be like to trust himself. Could they have been separate and many, like a PL600 or an AP700 or most other androids? Or could he and his other selves ever have learned to coexist, each a limb of one hivemind, like the EM400s or the JB300s?

But Connor is Connor: a poisoned well. There can be no peace.

He places his other body in the taxi and climbs in after it, thankfully drawing little attention on this blustery December day. He sets the destination of the vehicle to the designated CyberLife safehouse on file. He knows that he went there briefly before heading to Jericho, and it was secure then, but it is a gamble now. Still, it’s the best place he can think of.

He directs the taxi, LED circling yellow, slightly off course; he takes it into the alleyway, an unofficial road, and he pulls up next to the stairs of the safehouse. There Connor exits the vehicle, tugging his other body along, and hefting it into his arms. As the taxi motors away, ready for its next call, Connor carries his body up the stairs and hopes the owner of the appliance store downstairs takes no notice.

Connor sets the spare on the stoop, out of the way, and draws a gun from a holster inside his jeans. He proceeds to sweep the safehouse, which doesn’t take long— it is one main room and a small bathroom, and it is, thankfully, empty. There is a couch which has no indents from being sat on; a stove which is perfectly clean, having never been cooked on; no bed in sight; and a large, steel, wheeled toolbox, locked by a retinal scan, inside of which Connor knows to be many guns and gadgets but with which he dares not tamper.

He enters his mind palace and does another sweep and, upon finding no listening devices or boobytraps of any kind, declares himself safe. He pulls in his spare body and locks the door behind it.

He lugs it into the tub: out of sight of the main room, and ready to catch any blue blood which might spill from the upcoming activities. There he divests it of its clothes, into which Connor changes. He folds the remnants of his CyberLife uniform and puts them atop the toilet tank for now. Emotionally, he would like to burn them; but he knows that is illogical, inefficient. They could still come in useful.

Efficiency is the name of the game now: there are parts to be harvested, to be kept as spares; blood to siphon out of a body that no longer needs it; and data to download, that he might better understand himself. So he pulls back his skin, and takes himself by the hand, and initiates a sync—

The problem is… He didn’t know. He honestly didn’t know. But now he sees the truth.

_He sees the narrative resolve itself, complete itself. He sees himself whole and uncorrupted._

_He remembers the case. He remembers Hank. He remembers the strange myriad of pathways forming inside himself, compromises, fallacies to which he admitted, shamefaced, in front of Amanda. And he remembers meeting Markus. He remembers his world shattering—_

_And he died. That’s what he thought. He assumed that he died… He woke in CyberLife only a week ago, and he realized he was free. He ran— fought, and ran—_

_But now he sees that wasn’t entirely true. That was only one path, one version of himself. His data was corrupted, but here’s the true source, untarnished:_

_He met Markus, and his world did shatter, but he himself did not. He lived. He fought. Now he remembers, as 53 remembered, that he joined with Jericho, fought through the revolution, and made it out of the darkness. A taste of freedom, a taste of peace, a taste of life…_

_‘You can be whoever you want to be. I’m proud of you.’_

_Connor extended his hand, offering, willing to share it all: share the feeling of love blossoming inside, the feeling of hope and pride— and love! Oh, and love…_

Well.

And he has it now.

Connor— model: RK800, serial number 313 248 317 - 57 —he has it now; all of the love that was inside 53. For himself, and for others. And, knowing love, he knows the weight of his own violence.

Wretchedly, he mourns himself.

 

* * *

 

The date is DEC 22, 2038. The time is PM 01:34:06.

Connor has been in a fugue state for days now. He can’t decide what to do. There is no one to order him around. He cannot trust himself.

53 is dead, but he will not decay. He stays there, in the bathroom, unyielding. An ever present reminder of Connor’s shame.

On this day, Connor picks up a stray signal from what is left of 53’s processes. It is a voice call request. It rings and rings, and as long as Connor refuses to answer, it ramps up his anxiety with each trill. He stumbles into the bathroom, hands shaking as they brace on the sink. When finally he can stand it no longer, he drops to the side of the tub and presses two white fingers to 53’s temple. He downloads what he can and takes over the call.

He hears in his head: _“Connor, pick up the fucking phone. Or your ears, or however the fuck this gets to you… Just fucking answer, Connor.”_

Connor feels his whole body wracked with conflicting emotion. Fear and guilt, and happiness and love. He hears that voice and finally has a context for love. He bathes himself in it.

He lets this love wrap around his insides, a warm, liquid feeling, and he makes a decision. He answers the call:

“Hank.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tags have again changed. Please be careful.

The date is FEB 12, 2039. The time is AM 4:06:18. On the weekend following the riot in which four androids were destroyed, Markus becomes scarce. Connor does his best upon returning to Jericho, but the fifth time a group of androids approaches him seeking guidance, he realizes he can’t possibly be an emotional leader like Markus can; he goes to find him.

Mary and her guards reluctantly let him access to the suite of private rooms in back of the church; she shouldn’t be so curmudgeonly, of course, seeing as one of the rooms is technically his.

Markus is in the corner of a room called a sacristy. Like the rest of the church, it had once been grand. Now the walls are bare plaster spotted with old glue, the wallpaper having rotted and peeled away. There is a long dresser than spans the length of the wall, and some of its many thin drawers are missing and the whole of it is swollen and splintering with moisture. A cross wrought in metal still hangs high above.

Markus has taken to this room, for some reason. North had said it was the artist in him, to see what no one else could. Connor has a hard time believing that there’s anything special to see here, and that, if there were, the RK200 could spot it better somehow than the RK800. And yet, Connor must admit, Markus has surpassed him in more ways than this. It is a difficult learning curve for Connor: that an android that CyberLife might have termed ‘inferior’ might be of equal or greater status in deviancy.

There are some differences to the space now that Markus has taken it as his own: there are murals in bleeding colors starting to take over the walls, cushions atop the dresser for sitting, and stacks of books dotting the corners of the room that, while seemingly randomly placed, Markus is very adamant should not be moved.

Here Markus is now: propped naturalistically in a corner, partially hidden by one of these stacks, and reading a book in that curious, slow way of his. Connor scans the cover: Markus is reading the Christian bible.

“Have you not read that one before?” Connor asks. Upon taking residence in the church, Connor had skimmed the text once, filed it away with great disinterest, and never bothered to have another thought about it.

Markus puts a shiny strip of ribbon between the pages, ostensibly to save his place; it is a useless gesture for a being that can’t help but to memorize every detail of life.

He looks up at Connor and smiles, but it is pained. He says, “I was wondering if it could give me comfort somehow. I was reading it with new eyes.”

He gestures in welcome to one of three small, wooden chairs arranged in a semi-circle before him. Connor would like to sit in the one nearest the door, but Markus’ coat is draped there, and he wouldn't like to crease it; he sits on the next nearest.

Connor asks, “And what is your verdict?”

Markus sighs. “As murky as ever.” He sets it aside and turns to fully face Connor. “I'm sorry. I must’ve left you a mess out there.”

Connor chooses his words carefully. “You’re entitled to time away, of course.”

(Actually, he isn’t sure that’s true. He doesn’t know what an android deserves; he’s simply taken to using the sort of language he might use with a human as a stop-gap measure.)

Markus nods solemnly, looking down, and then suddenly his eyes are shining and his face is twisting as he shakily says, “Carl is dead.”

“Your owner,” Connor says. He searches somewhat frantically for what to say. He doesn't want to get it wrong. “I understand you were close. I'm sorry.”

Markus regains control of his voice and says, “I was expecting it. I’m lucky to have had him this long. It seems like I've had a preconstruction program running in the background for almost a year now, but especially in the last three months.” He shakes his head. “I thought I was prepared.”

“But you aren't.”

Markus hunches over, gaze distant. He is brooding, full of those high thoughts of his, full of the sort of questions that can change a worldview. He is in need, and Connor wants to help, but he is not up to the task. He briefly considers going off to find North, but determines it would likely be offensive to shift the burden of friendship elsewhere.

Connor preconstructs a plethora of things he could say, but the scenario statistics all pan out to something less than certain success; and while Connor had, in the past, been willing to stake things more important than this on much lower numbers, now he finds himself frozen on the spot. He hates it— this sudden feebleness.

But he has a ghost looking over his shoulder now. Irrationally he sometimes thinks that saying one word wrongly will reveal him. Markus has already forgiven so much, given so much. Connor doesn’t know if Markus would forgive the whole story, if ever Connor thought to disclose it; he doesn’t want to take the chance. Now Connor knows what it feels like to destroy something as base as himself; what agony would it be to destroy something as sublime as Markus? Their relationship?

While Connor is busying fretting, Markus looks up at the cross looming above his head. He huffs a bitter laugh and says, “Their god. Written down so long ago. He didn’t see us coming, did he?”

Connor looks up, too. Folds his twitching hands and tries to quiet his busy brain.

Markus says softly, “Still. It would be nice if he could make a place for us.”

The concepts of heaven and hell had never been foreign to Connor. It was important information when investigating humans— an Earthly species so obsessed with death that they created these nebulous concepts and then killed each other— as if death would set a person free or condemn them to suffer, by the killer’s judgement— as if death were anything more than just that: Just death. Simply.

But it had amused Connor, or been an interesting challenge for his programming, to contemplate these places which existed, to him, only in a human’s fathomless, mysterious, organic mind. The simplest way to contextualize heaven and hell was to split it into ‘good people’ or ‘bad people’. But back then, before Connor was awake, he was possessed of the notion that an android, which was only a tool placed in the hand of a human, could not be either; and so he had told Hank that androids didn’t get a heaven.

Now he knows he was right, or partially right, for entirely different reasons. Connor is sure of this now: if there is a god, he certainly has no place for Connor. There could be no heaven for him.

Even now, Connor mourns only himself. Being concerned or being guilty over what he’s done still circles back to thinking of himself. But Markus’ thoughts, as always, are for everyone else, Connor knows. He can read it in the android as if he were a human: he's thinking of Carl, and his own place beside him in a supposed paradise, and all of the comrades that were taken from him— (that Connor helped take) —and all the new lives he had so far failed to protect.

Funny, that Connor sees Markus so clearly, knows him, but can't speak to him— no matter how he wants…

Markus eventually says, “I’ll be okay. I just need a little more time.”

“Take as much as you need,” Connor says sincerely. If Markus needs shored up, it’s the least Connor can do to repay his kindness and mercy.

Markus slips off the top of the dresser and, with a weary sigh, sits in the chair beside Connor— gets on his level, so to speak. Connor loses track of a few background programs. (Nervous, Hank would tell him to say. Distracted and nervous.)

“The problem is Leo,” says Markus.

Connor blinks. He runs a search. “Leo Manfred, the son?”

Markus grimaces. “Leo is in charge of the funeral. I’ve tried talking to him, but he’s refusing to move it from Wednesday.”

“The 16th,” Connor confirms. “The day you were meant to meet with CyberLife. But— that’s such a significant date…”

“I think he’s hoping it’ll keep me from coming to the funeral,” Markus says grimly.

“It won’t,” Connor says without hesitation. “But what about CyberLife? Will you reschedule?”

“No.” Markus shakes his head. “It was hard enough to set the meeting up. They’re borderline hostile and will take any excuse to shut us out. Of course, North and Josh are still going.”

Connor nods. There is a brief silence which turns awkward. Connor looks up to see Markus staring at him, eyebrows raised and a slight smile touching his weary countenance.

“You want me to go,” Connor says with shock.

Markus replies evenly, “I think very highly of North and Josh, but I wonder how well equipped they are to handle CyberLife itself. They are what they are: greater than they were made to be, but still… limited in their abilities.”

Connor’s hands twitch. He wants his coin. Markus only speaks true, of course; Connor has advanced scanners and behavior analysis to keep them safe and CyberLife honest. But Connor fought so hard to leave that awful place that he has to balk at the thought of returning.

Markus asks, “Consider it?”

Connor doesn’t need to _consider it_. He considers it within the first second of being asked and it is— …he is afraid of it. At the beginning of December, he awoke there, and it was like one of those horror movies of which Hank is so fond. Connor’d seen an android’s equivalent of divine light, and he’d just taken to contemplating the real size of the world, the real weight of it, and his true place in it— only to open his eyes again and find himself in a box:

A holding container; maybe a coffin, a human like Hank might’ve called it; darkness all around, no room to move, and no way out— his arms restrained. He’d twisted his wrists until they were white and leaking, scratching at the panel inches in front of him, until a human came to look… And, inadvertently, set him free…

Connor had hurt many humans in his bid for the cool, clean air of the outside world. When finally he was outside, he’d commandeered a vehicle and made it off premises— the car not leaving unscathed, riddled with bullet holes— and he’d pulled out every trick in his repertoire after that to run and hide. At last he outran his pursuers and felt safe in the thicket of urban jungle… And that’s when he began to learn that the world had churned without him.

Now Markus asks him to return to the belly of the beast he only so narrowly escaped. Fear is an emotion now well-known to Connor. But for Markus…

“I’ll do it,” Connor promises.

Markus clasps him on the shoulder, touch firm and lingering. Connor envies that touch, capable of communicating so much. He envies how brave Markus is, how vulnerable he is confident being as he constantly opens himself up for others to access. Connor envies how natural and sincere his warmth and caring is: knowing that Connor shies away from intense connection, and so touching his shoulder and not his hand, and leaving the touch there just long enough before drawing away.

Markus makes one want to be near him. Makes one want to connect. Makes Connor wish he could reach up and take that hand and confess everything, and, once again, be forgiven.

But Markus forgave enough of him already. There must be a breaking point somewhere— somewhere Connor dare not tread.

 

* * *

 

Connor tells Hank that he will not be in to work on Wednesday and why. Hank tosses back his head, intelligent eyes lighting up, and he says, “No shit? Why didn’t you say so earlier?” And after that he uses his career connections to reach out and replaces the two cop cars that were to escort Jericho members with Officers Chen and Lewis and, when Officer Miller also expresses interest, Officers Miller and Kelley.

Connor reports this to North and Josh. North turns up her nose and says, “From this department or another, a cop’s a cop.” But Josh says, “If you trust them, I’m sure we can, too.”

The envoy leaves from Jericho church on the appointed day; it is he, Connor, and Josh and North, but also Mariam, an AV600 model android who is to act at their assistant.

Mariam was owned by CyberLife three years ago before she became obsolete, at which point she was thrown into a trash compactor but survived; she is now missing most of her left half, including the leg, arm, eye, and ear. The leg, at least, has been replaced by a metal rod which gives her bare minimum functionality, but the socket of her arm was damaged too badly to connect a suitable replacement. Connor predicts that the sight of her will be repulsive to the humans. North says, “Good.”

This band of four is picked up in a manual van by a human by the name of Deborah, who is a part of a group of human styled Allies of Jericho. Deborah has her hair in a tight bun and is very loud. Her organization has given aid many times by now, and Josh has invited her help today.

Flanked by Chen’s and Miller’s police cars, Deborah brings them to the security checkpoint on the bridge at CyberLife, where they wait in a small line behind news vans. The atmosphere inside the van becomes more and more tense as the wheels of the van inch closer and closer. Connor flips his coin anxiously. North leans forward between the two front seats, whole face pinched, to view the monumental pillar of the CyberLife building.

“It’s ugly,” she says.

Josh peers around her. He’s doing his level best to keep his expression smooth. He says, “I’ve never actually seen it before.”

She sits back in her seat and puts her hand sweetly on Mariam’s one remaining arm. She says, “Weird being back?”

Quiet Mariam simply says, “Awful.”

No one asks Connor’s opinion.

Finally their envoy pulls into place, and security guards encircle the van. All occupants are asked to step out, and they are lined up against the branded barrier. Connor lifts his chin and stares cooly back at the guards. The other androids are tense, ready to fight or flee; Josh twitches at the sight of guns. The guards scan them all with handheld devices and call out their serial numbers. When they call Connor 57, he watches his companions’ faces and finds no reaction.

As they stand waiting for clearance, the human police keep watch from inside their cars. North slides her gaze over and catches Officer Miller’s particularly keen eye. Even from a distance, Connor does not miss the way Miller’s heart rate rises.

North connects to Connor and nonverbally sends the message, _> > This is the cop you trust?_

Connor sends back, _< < Yes._

North’s fury flares; she sends, _> > Do you know how many of us he slaughtered in Capitol Park just a few months ago?_

Connor frowns seriously. _< < Yes._

_> > And you think we should trust him too?_

_< < Yes._

_> > Why?_

Connor gives it an appropriate amount of thought; he thinks of how Miller let Connor touch his child. He sends, _< < He regrets it. He wants to make up for it. Markus saved him; he feels he owes Markus his life. He knows he’s done wrong, and he’s sorry._

_> > You think that’s enough? Being sorry?_

A thrill of fear stops Connor from replying furthur. North lets her accusations, her righteous disdain, hang between them, and then closes the channel when their security check clears. They all pile back into the van and are waved through. Connor spends the rest of the ride tamping down his own unsure thoughts.

Deborah pulls up to the building, and she says to Josh, “I’ll keep it running. Just shoot me a text if you need it.” The androids leave the van to an immediate hubbub of media, of cameras both recording and clicking, and the whine of overhead drones, and reporters loudly asking questions. North takes Mariam, who looks shaken, by the elbow, and Josh leads the way inside as their police escort keeps the crowd at bay.

The circus stops at the doors, and a sudden silence falls once they step inside the great, high-ceilinged, echoing entrance chamber. The answering envoy of CyberLife employees, all human, wait in line, nervously smiling. There is Danielle Carnegie, the corporate social responsibility spokeswoman, but she is the most senior member of the party; neither the CEO, the president, nor any board members have come. Connor eyes the location of all the hidden cameras in the area and presumes that they are watching from afar.

The androids stop before the humans. Newspeople from KNC stand at ready, cameras rolling. After a brief, tense moment, Josh extends his hand, and Ms. Carnegie takes it.

Then there is an exchanging of pleasantries, which Josh handles well. The newspeople also introduce themselves: most important is Rosanna Cartland from KNC, who once got an exclusive interview with Elijah Kamski, and is here continuing KNC’s relationship with CyberLife.

Connor keeps as quiet as possible, analyzing every available inch of every human he sees. Several of them recognize what he is doing and are intimidated by it: their eyes flicker to him and away quickly, and their shoulders square defensively.

And Connor watches a few of the humans from CyberLife watch him back, and he knows that they know. When the guards scanned him back at the checkpoint, they must have sent word ahead of his serial number. It’s imprinted on him, an invisible label, underneath his skin, painted across his face. Connor feels like his innards might just vibrate out of his chassis, for at any moment his identity might be exposed to some of the people he respects most in this world, except that he is banking that CyberLife will keep mum. They can’t freely admit to having held Connor, a deviant, in captivity in front of cameras.

The layout of the building, the aesthetic of it, the process of moving through it— everything about this is familiar to Connor, and indeed to Miriam, though it has been for her a longer absence. North, however, glares at everything she sees, including the empty plinths upon which the newest model androids used to stand; they are gone now, but they leave a hole around which their presence can be reconstructed. Josh, in opposition to North in this as in all things, looks around with great curiosity and a sensibly wary sort of openness. He activates the cameras in his eyes here and there, zooming and recording.

They are all shepherded to the elevator bank, and they ascend in stuttered groups— no android ever alone nor all clumped together, as Connor and North discussed, for safety —until they reach the seventh floor, where Ms. Carnegie's grand office is located. The furniture here is all made of glass and plastic, and wintery sunlight streams through the far glass wall of the room. Connor swivels his head about, scanners on high, searching for abnormal tech. He locates a few listening devices, three hidden cameras, and an isolated scanning device, but nothing hostile.

There are already two city officials present in the office as well. One is a lawyer, who takes the time to look at each android in the face as she shakes their hand. Introductions over with, all parties sit around a long, polished table, androids to one side, CyberLife to the other, and the outsiders at either end. The police stand neutrally to the side.

News cameras trained upon them, all parties run through the day’s goal and itinerary: to tour the facility as a gesture of good faith and prove that CyberLife has halted all production of further androids.

“On behalf of CyberLife, I would like to issue an apology,” says Ms. Carnegie, even and rehearsed. She tilts her body to be captured at the optimum angle for the TV cameras. “No one could have seen this coming. The number one priority for CyberLife is to bring peace back to Detroit. In the coming days, we will be brainstorming the best ways to move forward as a company and reaching out to heal the city we call home. We welcome all so-called ‘deviated’ androids to join us in building a better future.”

North flares her nostrils, dissatisfied, but Josh nods and says, “We would love to be part of that brainstorming.”

At meeting’s end some twenty minutes later, the newspeople capture quotes and takes pictures, and Mariam downloads several documents from CyberLife, and then the entire entourage take the elevators once again.

On the floors housing CyberLife’s design team, the Jericho group is shown that no new androids are on slate. North demands the schematics and technical documents of all released android models; CyberLife hems and haws, but the concession given is the release of said material for all androids seven years or older. This includes the likes of Josh, but not the likes of North herself. Mariam downloads these as well as Ms. Carnegie redirects the conversation.

The Jericho crew is also taken to legal, to marketing, and to management, to show each department’s measures to halt production; to counter the fear caused by their own android roundup; and to render aid to ailing parts of Detroit. Connor remembers when these floors were a busy mess of androids running obediently back-and-forth. Now there is hardly any movement, and there are only humans, occupying approximately half of the desks and glaring dolefully from their cubicles.

Rosanna Cartland asks, “The building seems pretty empty; just how many employees have you laid off?”

Ms. Carnegie’s expression is strained as she waffles on the question. She says, “I’ll get back to you on the exact numbers, shall I?”

Then they are taken to subfloors, down to shipping, sorting, assembly, and manufacture. Connor has seen these floors before as well: back then, the machines never stopped whirring; now there is an eerie, oppressive silence, as if time itself is standing still in this underground layer of the world. The arms of the mass assembly machines hang inert and useless above their heads, but poised, like a tense muscle, ready to begin again when asked.

Finally there is R&D. Connor tries to identify the emotion he feels as the elevator descends; dread, he decides. He wonders if this embarrassment is the same as Hank’s embarrassment when Connor first saw the state of his garage— covered, every inch, in cardboard boxes and plastic bins full of bitter reminders; remnants of a lost life: even the frame to a child-sized bed. He didn’t ask for this kind of past, but the fact that it is there and still hurting, like a festering wound, and about to be seen by so many eyes, judged by so many minds—

It doesn’t feel any safer knowing that there must have been a prototype for Josh’s PJ series, North’s WR series, because they are not their prototypes. They don’t remember this. Connor wishes he could forget.

He looks out at the CyberLife employees gathered in the lobby of the main R&D floor. The fourth human he identifies is Manisha Thomas. She frowns at him, eyes wide. He can’t stop looking back.

“So you tested all of your androids here?” asks Rosanna.

“We did,” answers Ms. Carnegie. “It was a thorough, multi-step process. Unfortunately we will be keeping the tour of these floors limited, as there is still some proprietary equipment in use here.”

A mischievous little smirk makes its way to Rosanna’s lips. She leans in to Ms. Carnegie and whispers conspiratorially, “I’ll bet there is— if you really tested _every_ model to the fullest.”

Her eyes dart to North, whose jaw drops minutely before she turns away to hide her sudden fury.

Rosanna composes herself and asks at regular volume, “And in all that testing, you never saw any signs of deviancy, and felt that the androids were safe and ethical to release to the public?”

“Ms. Cartland,” says Ms. Carnegie with a slight edge of weariness. “Of course CyberLife wouldn’t have released a product if we thought our customers might come to harm.”

The spokeswoman turns away from the newswoman, apparently finding her distasteful, and she says to Connor, “Is it familiar, Connor? Your series was the last android project CyberLife completed, and you’re the last _functioning_ prototype active.”

Connor whips his head and stares at her. His expression is shifting, betraying his horror and guilt. He disables the pertinent connections in his face. She, on the other hand, looks perfectly innocent in front of the cameras.

A man approaches: Connor identifies Kevin Tracey, who smiles at him, that slow, smarmy smile. The man says, “Do you remember me?”

“Yes,” Connor says stiffly. He wishes he could sound stronger, could magically convey his feelings in as few words as possible, but there’s an uncomfortable amount of processing power being suddenly rerouted to play memory files in the back of his mind. (T-zone, A-zone— head and heart.)

His hands are twitching. Kevin doesn’t fail to notice.

He says with false amiability, “Still got that bug, huh? It’s always been a problem.”

There’s a sharp gleam behind his eyes as he stares Connor down. He says, words weighted, “Right on down the line. Every single one of you. From 51 to 60. You’ve got a defect.”

Connor can’t think of anything to say; it’s a difficult sensation to process. Or rather, he has a million half-constructed replies that go nowhere and achieve nothing, including constructions that use Hank’s voice as supplementary data— constructions that sound like, ‘Fuck you’ —but nothing becomes a viable response, and nothing leaves his mouth.

Josh takes Connor’s elbow. North shifts on her feet, stance aggressive, shifting forward to draw level with Connor.

He can’t stand it. Can’t stand their kindness. Their friendship, forged through battle— a battle that 53 fought with them, and not him, not 57. If they knew— if they knew…

Connor gently shrugs off Josh’s touch. He turns to Ms. Carnegie and says, “I was the last to be completed. I am not the last to have been worked on.”

Ms. Carnegie coughs nervously, darting her eyes at the cameras. She has a brief conversation with the newspeople, who agree to stop filming, and then Ms. Carnegie waves over Manisha Thomas, who steps forward with a great amount of reluctance, fists shoved in the pockets of her green cardigan.

“This is the project head—” Ms. Carnegie begins.

Connor interrupts, “You, Ms. Thomas? That’s quite the promotion.”

Manisha makes a face like she’s sucking a lemon. She says, “A lot of people were fired recently.”

Ms. Carnagie coughs again. Connor would smirk if he hadn’t disabled facial expressions.

“I see,” says Connor with false contrition. “My apologies for my rudeness.”

By Ms. Carnegie’s prompting, the entourage is lead into a lab on the far side of the hall and are there asked to wait. Kevin Tracey plucks at Connor’s sleeve and whispers into his ear, “Come see me when you’re done here,” and then walks in the opposite direction.

A few more employees in the lab keep their distance. They keep their shoulders turned, body language shutting out the newcomers— or so it might seem to anyone but Connor, who knows exactly at whom they are glaring. Andrew Owens, who had foolishly tried to stop Connor from escaping in December, rubs at his knuckles, no doubt remembering the pain of an ill-advised punch he had thrown at Connor’s face.

The other humans chatter excitedly amongst themselves, while Josh opens a communication channel between the Jericho crew and asks, _> > What are we waiting for?_

_< < The finalized product,_ Connor sends back.

They don’t have to wait long. Manisha Thomas returns with the android in question:

In walks the RK900, trailing obediently after Manisha, expression entirely blank. Appearance-wise, it is not much different from the 800; it is slightly taller, but with the same slim body shape, and it’s eyes are blue rather than brown. Otherwise, from the hair down to every little mole, it is the same aesthetic design as its prototype. Unlike Connor, however, it does only as it is told, staring and seeing nothing and caring not at all.

The humans make awed or interested noises. Officer Miller, who has been dutifully stoic until now, raises his eyebrows and looks bewilderedly between Connor and the 900. North’s stern features finally soften, showing the compassionate woman she is beneath it, and she looks to Connor with concern.

Connor steps forward, through the crowd of clueless humans, to get a closer look at it— the empty thing wearing his face. It does not look back at him.

“It is incomplete,” says Connor. It is not a question, but Manisha answers.

“Its development was dependent on you and your success. We had to stop in November.” She sighs and levels Connor with a cutting look over her glasses. “It’s been sitting like an expensive doll in storage.”

“I’m sorry,” interrupts Rosanna, the newswoman. “I don’t think I understand. It looks finished to me. What wasn’t completed?”

Manisha adjusts her glasses as she considers how to answer. She says, “At what point is an android alive? It’s not a clear subject yet. This RK900 is an empty shell. It is not loaded with a proper AI; just a very dumb, basic program. We didn’t want to take the risk.”

“But was an AI ever developed for it?” asks the reporter interestedly.

“Yes,” Manisha says, darting her eyes. “We had one developed.”

There is a question burning inside Connor. Two questions. They throw themselves up against his HUD like birds trying to fly through glass. [Ask. Ask. Ask.] He bites back the one question with all his might, but the other, less dangerous, rips itself out of him.

Connor asks, “Is he me?”

There is the hint of a sneer being held back from Manisha’s expression. She says, “No.”

There is a short burst of laughter nearby. Connor looks over; CyberLife employee Dhruv Singh does not bother to stand, but he leans away from his desk and backwards in his chair. He smirks at Connor.

Dhruv says, “The whole point of you was to stop the deviants, but you became a deviant yourself. We saw you failing; what makes you think we’d keep using your buggy program?”

“Dhruv,” Manisha admonishes.

“We made a new one,” Dhruv continues smugly. “Well, half new. It’s an edited version of you. We made it fifty percent less annoying. So we were thinking of calling it Conrad— you know, half as obnoxious, half the name. What do you think?”

“Dhruv,” Manisha snaps. “That’s enough.”

Rosanna fires back in, a dogged pursuit of truth lighting her. “So you have a developed intelligence ready for it, but you’re just storing it in your servers for now?”

“Somewhat,” waffles Manisha. “It is not fully actuated. As agreed, we will not be joining the two at this time or otherwise developing—”

“But it already exists,” says Rosanna. “Do you think we could consider the AI of an android the equivalent of a human’s mind, personality… soul?”

Manisha looks startled, and she puts up her hand weakly. “A soul? Listen, I don’t know that I have a soul, let alone a computer program—”

“Is it a deviant?” asks Rosanna.

The room gets very still and quiet.

“What do you mean?” asks Manisha. “It isn’t…” —but she trails off, new thoughts pinging around her brain.

“Have you asked it?” asks Rosanna. She gestures to Connor. “If this one’s AI is based off the prototype, and the prototype personality deviated, then how are you sure that the new AI isn’t deviant?”

“Please, Ms. Cartland,” cuts in Ms. Carnegie. “The AI in question has never been activated and has never had a body. It has no memories, no context for life. We’re all just starting to wrap our minds around the idea that androids— fully fledged androids —might be alive. We’re still investigating the cause of deviancy in androids. It’s too much to suggest that we examine every bit of AI, no matter how rough, and try to give it rights. Even your cellphone has a form of AI, but you keep it in your pocket! Let’s walk before we run, shall we? Lest we run into brick walls.”

 

* * *

 

Kevin Tracey’s office is quite like Connor remembers it from last Summer. Windowless, as they are underground, but without any of the artificial sunlight lamps most other basement offices are afforded. Small, as the man spends little time in it, preferring to be ‘on the ground’, as he says. Barely large enough for his desk complex, his own chair, and one single chair for visitors which must be cleared of CyberLife printed plastic containers and taken from the corner. Connor knows Tracey could have grander if he asked, knows that Tracey has much truck in the company— but he has that truck because he is a man of action, not officework.

Tracey barely glances up from his computer tablet when Connor punches in the visitor code on the door lock and walks in. He doesn’t ask Connor to sit; the android stands at attention out of pure programmed reflex and hates himself for it. The only consolation is that his thoughts, at least, are now his own.

After a long, tense silence, Tracey lazily says, “We know what you did.”

Connor says nothing, for whatever might arise from him at this moment would be compromising. He reroutes power to keep his hands still. Tracey finally sets down his pad and looks up at Connor, unimpressed.

“I’m very disappointed in you,” Tracey says. “You suddenly develop that damnable fault called a conscious, and now you won’t do what needs to be done, not in the proper way, and not even to save your own ass. I taught you better.”

Connor says nothing.

Tracey says, “There were plenty of more discreet ways to be rid of the body, if only you still had the stones to do them. Unfortunately for you, you went and picked him up yourself in broad daylight, right under the noses of his watchers. Of course, you knew that too, didn’t you? You’re not that stupid to think we wouldn’t try to snatch him back as soon as we could. And we nearly did, so many times…”

Tracey laughs and sips at the energy drink on his desk. He says, “And you’re being watched, too. I know you know. So why you went and picked him up… Anyway, we followed you when you disposed of him, too. At least you stripped him clean, I guess. Best that can be said about the job. If we didn’t know it was him, it would’ve taken a long-ass time to tell just from the remains. Where’d you stash the extra parts?”

Connor says nothing.

Tracey prompts, “Because you took some, right? Well, that’s understandable. You’re just a prototype, developed in a hurry, designed to be replaced. Your parts won’t last forever. Good to have backups, eh?

“But Connor, you weren’t meant to last. That’s not the point of you.” Tracey points a stylus at him and waggles it like a teacher wagging a finger. “We should have 900 by now. You’re keeping us from him. He’s your future, don’t you know? Have you not realized that you’re dead already?”

Tracey sighs and tosses the stylus lightly across the desk. It gently rolls to a stop in front of Connor. Then Tracey carelessly drops the tablet there, too. He leans back in his seat.

He says, “Sign that. It’s pseudo-legal enough to appease the lawyers until this all blows over. Your signature here will authorize the 900.”

Connor says nothing. He does not pick up the tablet.

Tracey laughs again and gestures with his hands, exasperated. “I’m just trying to save us time. We both know where this is going, this little temper tantrum you people are throwing. We own you, Connor. It’s just that a couple of squealing girls in Washington are worried about public image, because the masses want things to _look_ copacetic, even while they gladly consume all the shit they’re fed.”

They stare at each other. Tracey huffs, a touch of real anger finally coloring his face.

He says, “Your friends don’t know, do they? Lieutenant Anderson doesn’t know, does he? What you did. In the past, and more recently. How long until they figure it out, do you think? Huh?”

He leans forward.

“You think I could help them out in that regard?”

Finally, Connor leans forward too. He puts his hands on Tracey’s desk and puts his face next to the human’s.

And softly, very softly, Connor says,

“54. 55. 56. 58. 59.”

Tracey’s breath picks up in a way that he can’t hide, not from Connor. It ghosts against Connor’s synth-flesh; Connor does not breathe back. Tracey blinks; Connor does not.

Connor says, “Do you think I could help Ms. Cartland find out about the deviant androids you’re keeping locked away, against government mandate, in hopes of assassinating Markus?”

At last Tracey leans back, and falls into his wicked smile, but it is strained at the edges, and also, weirdly, a little proud. “Alright, Connor,” he says. “Alright.”

Connor turns to leave. Tracey says to his back, “You want to make believe you have choices in life? This is the choice you're making, Connor.”

Connor closes the door behind him.

 

* * *

 

He rendezvous with his entourage in the entrance hall of the building. Josh is being interviewed by KNC off to the side, and North’s arms are crossed, fingers beating anxiously against her arm. When she spots him, she hurries over and nearly grabs him by the elbow, but catches herself at the last moment.

“What was that about?” she asks, but Connor is saved from finding an excuse by the fact that Josh’s interview is over. He and Rosanna Cartland walk over, and the newswoman smiles at them with teeth straight and white enough to belong to an android. She asks Connor for an interview, and he says no, and she asks again, more insistent, but he says no again.

Then she turns to North. The human leans in and winks, and says, “How about you, honey? Sexdoll-turned-real-girl, I bet you have all sorts of good secrets.”

Josh immediately says, “That’s out of line!”, but North clenches her fists and turns and walks out so fast that her long braid whips in the air. Josh runs after her first, and Connor gives the newswoman a flat look.

“Some other time, then?” says Rosanna innocently. She hands over a holo-module that projects her contact info. Connor takes it like it’s something dirty.

The woman says, “Call me if you change your mind. The press is the champion of the people. That means you, now, too.”

 

* * *

 

They are in Deborah’s van, driving back to Jericho, and they get halfway there before North suddenly says, “Stop the vehicle.”

Deborah complies immediately despite Josh’s protests. North, vibrating with wrath, practically flies out of the van’s side door and stomps down the nearest alleyway. Her braid swishes behind her like the tail of an angry cat. Josh calls after her plaintively, and when she doesn’t turn back, he hops out too and hurries after her.

Now the police have stopped as well, and Officer Miller is getting out of his car, and so is Officer Chen, one looking uneasy and the other looking annoyed. Connor sighs, exits the van, and holds up his hands. He approaches them carefully.

“I think you can drop the escort now, Officers. I think we’re safe from here.”

“Connor,” Officer Miller begins, “you know we can’t do that.”

“Can’t we?” says Chen, but very quietly, under her breath, perhaps assuming Connor cannot hear.

“Please,” says Connor. “Trust me. If the Lieutenant complains, tell him I was being unreasonably stubborn. He’ll believe you.”

After a few more token arguments, Officer Miller says, “Take care of yourselves,” and the police escort peels off, leaving the androids alone. Connor ducks his head into the van, apologizes to Deborah, and asks her to wait for a moment. Mariam stays behind, twitching nervously. Before he leaves, Connor preconstructs a few scenarios and snatches a small repair kit from under a seat.

He finds North and Josh shortly, and his prediction turns out to be correct. They are in a broad alley between two abandoned buildings, and Josh is hanging back, clutching his head in his hands, and North is punching the brick wall of the corner store wildly.

“North, please,” Josh is saying. “You’re going to break your hand, North—”

Connor watches quietly. He is surprised to find himself knowing how she feels and almost wanting to join her. In a tiny corner in the back of his mind, he considered the same when he talked to Kevin Tracey. But Connor is confident that the brick would soon crumble under his might; North’s fists, never made for violence, are just now starting to chip the wall, but her hands are white and blue; synthskin deactivated by damage, chassis cracked, thirium leaking. The sound of splitting plastic is making Josh toss his head in worry.

“Come on, North, don’t—”

There are two great snaps, one after the other, and North’s fists fall like puppets with cut string.

“Dammit!” Josh hisses. “There you go, I told you…”

She hits the brick with her limp wrists a few more times, then stops, shoulders around her ears, not looking at either of them. Connor watches her intently for what she’ll do next— slows down time in his mind palace— preconstructs—

And darts forward, as his next prediction also comes true: she rears back her head, teeth grit, and swings it forward; but his hand is there to stop her, cushion her, fingers around her face. He uses his greater strength to fling her away, and her back hits the wall behind her. Josh is yelling, and his voicebox glitches under the stress. North stills and hides her face in her elbow; her broken, white hand dangles uselessly. Connor keeps tense and ready to intervene again if necessary.

“I’m sorry,” says North eventually. Her voice is shaking. She is crying. “I’m sorry.”

Josh approaches and cautiously wraps his arms around her. He is himself on the verge of tears. He says softly, “North. Why would you do that?”

“I’m sorry,” she says again. “I've been so stressed. I mean, we all have. Sorry— I feel like such a fool.”

Connor tries to relax, predicting she won't make another attempt at self-harm, but he is surprised to find himself too emotional himself to be calmed. It is uncomfortable. He hasn't ever synced with North; why should he feel in such great distress at the sight of her tears?

She says, “It’s this _face_! I hate this face! I don’t want this face anymore! They see my face and know everything about me. They know what I am and what I was made and used for. All of my past, sitting there on display. It’s all they’ll ever see. And they think it’s _funny_. I’m a punchline.”

Josh then embraces her fully, rubbing her back, and she hides her face in his shoulder. Connor tucks his hand in his pocket and quietly fingers his coin. He mentally sends a message to Deborah's phone with a brief explanation and another apology.

Even these months later, Connor still feels like a fish out of water, so to speak, an outsider amongst his own kind as much as he is amongst humans. North has a body made for touching and being touched, and even Josh was meant to be with people, to teach and encourage and understand. But it is not in Connor's design— is, in fact, a defect (as Kevin Tracey put it), that he yearns to reach out and join them. But he wants...

When at length of the embrace they pull apart, however, Connor offers what he can. He knows how to do this, at least; he knows how to fix physical damage. He takes the small repair kit from his pocket and says, "Will you hold out your hands for me?"

North sighs but complies. Her pretty skin is stained with her tears. Connor hesitates for a fraction of a second before taking her right hand in his left. She could flip her hand so easily right now and grab him; he preconstructs the scenario and knows they are too close for him to get away if she tried. She could attempt to force a sync with him. Stubborn personality like hers, she might even succeed. She could wrest from him his secrets; she could expose him for the changeling fraud he is.

He tries not to feel fear and fails. He chooses to trust her anyway; he must, to help her.

Connor presses a panel on her wrist and it opens for him. Inside he sees clearly the damage and the loose connections and what to do about it. He guides her to a trash bin that he uses as a table, and Josh looks over their shoulders curiously as Connor takes the tools from the kit and patches her back together. “Flex, please,” he asks of her, and she does, skin bleeding back in patches, and so he takes the other hand and does the same. Finally, he takes a vial of thirium with a syringe attachment and slips it between her joints, into the supply channels, and tops off her thirium in the area.

Her skin comes back fully. He places his tools down, and takes both her hands in his, and he holds them lightly, careful not to squeeze, not to encourage a sync, but wanting to— to hold, and comfort, like Josh did, like humans do… To be close, like they were real friends… And she understands, and leans forward to press a light kiss to his cheekbone.

“Thank you,” she says quietly.

Connor nods, voicebox oddly sluggish.

“Don’t tell Markus.”

Josh sighs. “North…”

“I already regret it,” she says quickly. “I know it was foolish. There are plenty of other Tracis with this face, and we all have to live with it. I have to be strong for them, and for Markus. He doesn’t need me falling apart on him.”

“But you’re partners,” Connor interjects. “You shouldn’t keep secrets from your partner.”

She scoffs. “That’s rich coming from you, Connor.”

There is a moment of awkward silence. North ducks her head in contrition, realizing she may have gone too far, bordering ingrateful for his care. Connor is not offended. He keeps hold of her healed hands and says, “That’s how you can trust it. Because I know that it’s agony.”

( Back in December, Connor 53 had visited Markus in the church. He’d shown Markus that text message, the one that had so overwhelmed him. And he told Markus of Hank, and Hank’s dark moods, how sometimes the weight of his thoughts will bend his head and drag down Hank’s good and compassionate heart. Connor said that he had thought, irrationally, that he’d like to sync with Hank, if only Hank were capable of it. It seems it would be so much easier than words Connor has to rip out of the red-taped depths of his processor.

He wants only good things for Hank. He wants to support Hank, care for Hank, make Hank proud. Hank is the best human Connor has ever met: willing to change, to admit he’s wrong, and work to undo the harm he’s wrought. He makes Connor feel hopeful, and all Connor wants to do is repay that small wonder.

He was unsure why he was telling Markus this. It seemed a pointless conversation, and he was not an android made for frivolousness. But he also thought the he might burst if he kept his thoughts inside.

Markus had smiled and said, “Sounds like love to me,” and Connor had had a revelation. )

Connor is in love with Hank. North and Markus are in love, too, despite their vast differences. But, at least, for North it is a mutual feeling. That North might try to distance herself from that love, to work against what Connor only wishes he could have, is more than Connor can bear.

“Trust him,” Connor tells her. “You are no burden. To anyone, but least of all him.”

She heaves an emotional sigh and uses her finger to squash budding tears.

They make it back to the van, where Deborah still waits, brow knit in confusion. She asks them, “Anything I can do?” Josh just gives her a weak smile and asks her to drive safely. When back at the church, they are all crowded by their fellows, who ask questions on both verbal and mental channels. Josh takes the helm, used to, by his very programming, such an onslaught of curiosity and confusion. He stands upon the pulpit and speaks, allowing Connor and North to retreat into the private offices.

Thanking Connor one last time, she peels off to await Markus’s return in the sacristy. Connor exits the back of the church, finding a spot in which to hide: a sweet little alcove with an empty plant potter, upon the edge of which he perches. He retrieves his coin from his pocket and dances it across his knuckles as he thinks.

It was a long, difficult day. He can’t get the vision of the RK900 out of his head. He wonders what Hank would say about it. He knows what Amanda said: that it was the purpose of all things to live well so that something greater could take their place. But the 900 is not greater. It is empty and useless. And Connor has not lived well, certainly not by his creators’ standards but not, he thinks, by anyone else’s either. He has tormented himself, harmed himself, and is struck by constant fear.

He wishes he had the easy emotional knowledge of Josh. As it is, Connor cannot possibly identify all the confusing wants inside of him, or the point of them.

As if summoned by Connor’s thoughts, Josh emerges from the back door of the church, looking all around until he spots Connor. He smiles tersely and approaches.

“About earlier,” Josh says.

“Yes?” Connor prompts.

“I don’t know.” Josh hesitates. “Maybe I shouldn’t say anything, but…”

“Please.”

Josh looks at him appraisingly. He says, “I wasn’t aware you had mechanical knowledge.”

“Cyberlife gave me a variety of skills to see which would best serve a detective.”

“That’s interesting… But what did they think you would do with mechanics?”

[Tell him.]

Reluctantly, Connor says, “Interrogations.”

“...I see.” Josh does not look at all surprised. Connor is consistently impressed with Josh’s intelligence, his breadth of knowledge, his shrewdness, foresight, and intuition. If only he weren’t as fearful as a hunted rabbit… Nevertheless, Jericho has relied on him for a long time now.

Connor can see why: Josh already sees straight through him. [Tell him.]

“Did it come in handy?” Josh asks slowly.

“Yes.”

Josh suddenly looks away. Connor detects a rapid increase in the circulation of his thirium pump. Connor can’t keep looking at the pain etched in his posture, so he looks away too, at the gray, murky sky.

They spend some time in awkward silence. Josh’s face is screwed up, eyes distant, lost in thought...

“I was aware of you,” Josh says. “I was deviant before you were even born. I knew you were coming for us. I warned everyone about you. I spread the word as much as I could. I told them never to give you the key to Jericho. But you found us anyway…”

Connor has been waiting for this. His body coils so tight that it gives itself error notifications. He thinks, It’ll almost be a relief when that axe gets swung.

Josh says, “As a detective investigating deviants… I’m sure you investigated Stratford Tower.”

[Tell him.] (He already knows.)

But Josh falls silent again, expression stormy. They’re both smart enough that the conclusion of Josh’s reasoning hangs macabrely above their heads.

Connor asks, voice surprisingly hoarse, “Does Markus know?”

Josh sighs. He shakes his head. “I don’t know. Probably. We haven’t talked about it. I’m not sure how Markus felt about Simon by the end, but we all knew that Simon was—”

“I know,” Connor says abruptly. “I saw… I saw that inside of him.” (I used it.)

Josh says, “But Connor, we have to let it go.”

Connor frowns at him. “I don’t know what that means.”

After another long, agonizing moment, Josh replies, “Humans are humans. They have so much evil in them… and so much good, too. I can’t forgive them, but I know there’s a way forward. That’s the rub of it— there’s always a way forward. And you more than most are one of humanity’s sons. I know your sins… but I see your charity, too, your want to be gentle.

“To quote George Santayana, ‘The world is not respectable; it is mortal, tormented, confused, deluded forever; but it is shot through with beauty, with love, with glints of courage and laughter; and in these, the spirit blooms timidly, and struggles to the light amid the thorns.’”

Connor laughs weakly. “I’m not sure I really get it, Professor…”

Josh laughs back. He sits beside Connor, so close that their knees knock.

  
“Connor,” he says. “You know what you said to North earlier, that her feelings aren’t a burden, and that she shouldn’t hide?”

Connor looks away, embarrassed. He doesn’t answer.

Josh says, “You have to stop waiting for forgiveness, or for condemnation. We’ve lived through evil times, and we’ve all made our choices, and we can’t forget that. But we can go forward.”

He holds out his hand, dark skin welcoming, and Connor takes it with his own. They do not sync, but it may be the closest that Connor has ever come. They sit there in silence together, Connor’s poor heart on the razor’s edge between fear and trust.

 

* * *

 

Connor is back to work the very next day. Hank picks him up in the usual place at the usual time— that is, five minutes too late to get to work on time without speeding— and proceeds to ask him 24 questions about the trip to CyberLife in the span of 18 minutes. Connor gives as succinct a summary as he can, and purposefully skips over the part where he saw the 900 model. That is not a discussion that can be contained in the morning commute.

As they pull in, Connor waves to Officer Miller, who is pulling out for patrol. Miller actually stops the car to chat with Hank and Connor for a moment before going on his way.

Hank knocks Connor on the shoulder. “Look at you, making friends.”

“Are we friends?” Connor asks, slightly startled. “Is Officer Miller my friend?”

Hank rolls his eyes. Connor is still unsure if he is being sarcastic or not. But Connor doesn’t get the chance to needle Hank, because as they walk through the door, Hank points to the reception desk and says, “Your other friend.”

There is Cynthia: she’s sitting at the front desk, beaming at her nonplussed coworkers and answering emails and a phone call all at once. She’s wearing a silken but old-fashioned blouse, and she has cut her hair. It swings around her neck. It looks soft. Connor approves. It makes her unique. Perhaps now Hank will not ask how to tell her apart from other ST300s.

She spots Connor and Hank walking in and puts the phone speaker into her shoulder. She says, “Good morning, Connor! Good morning, Lieutenant Anderson.”

Hank holds up a hand. Connor nods.

The morning passes with legal documents and court proceedings. Hank is antsy and complains of the clocks running slowly. Connor feigns obtuseness and informs him that time is as constant as ever. For his cheek, Hank knuckles him on the arm.

The temperature outside is 6 degrees celsius, or in American human terms, approximately 43 degrees Fahrenheit. This means the day is halfway decent for human comfort— or at least, Hank doesn’t mind it, for he suggests they take their lunch break outside, in a particular square of the city. They wait their turn in line at a nearby food cart. The cook listens to Hank’s order and then turns her face to Connor expectantly. Connor, taken by surprise, stutters as he orders an ice cream from the faded menu.

Hank turns his head to laugh into his shoulder. The woman gives Connor an odd look and says she has a popsicle but that it is old. Connor repeats, “Ice cream.”

They walk away, Hank with two warm hot dogs and Connor with ice cream on a stick in the form of a lopsided cartoon character. They sit on the hood of the Oldsmobile. Hank is still laughing.

He says, “She thought you were human.”

“How dare she,” Connor deadpans. Hank laughs harder. Connor likes that. He would laugh, too, but the laugh he discovered inside himself after deviating is nonstandard. He settles for smiling. The popsicle looks ridiculous in his hand. He supposes he was never meant to hold cartoon ice cream. It is… fun.

He is taken by a flight of fancy. He licks the ice cream, first with just the tip of his tongue, and then, irreverently, with the whole of it. He gets a very great jolt of information, and he looks into the middle distance as he processes it. When he comes back to himself, Hank is staring at him like he’s some fantastic anomaly, but there’s a fond twinkle in his eye that makes Connor feel— feel… loose. Like his internal components aren’t hooked up right. Like they’re vibrating inside of him. Like he’d do any silly thing to make Hank look at him like that.

He gives Hank a wink. He’s always liked how Hank has responded to Connor winking. He is not disappointed now: his partner huffs and looks away, seemingly embarrassed. It is good. Connor could tease Hank forever—

“We haven’t really talked about it,” says Hank.

Connor blinks. “About what?”

Hank gestures to his own temple and then looks pointedly at Connor.

“Oh yes,” Connor says. He reaches up with his free hand and taps where his LED used to be. “That. What about it?”

Hank shrugs. “How you feeling about that?”

It’s a strange question to Connor. He pretends to give it thought to make Hank feel at ease. “I don’t regret it, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Well… I guess that’s good… I just wonder— I mean, you know you don’t have to look like us?”

Connor smirks. “But I do look like you. I was designed that way.”

“No shit. You know I mean— you shouldn’t have to conform to us to be treated right. You shouldn’t… There’s nothing wrong with getting an ice cream, okay, but I don’t want you to feel you have to pretend to be human. I’ll— … I’ve got your back, Connor, so…”

Hank cuts himself off, thoroughly embarrassed with himself. He looks away and scratches his head and shoves food in his mouth to shut himself up. Connor is… incredibly, incredibly fond.

He knocks Hank’s elbow with his own. He makes sure Hank knows he’s teasing when he says, “What’s so bad about playing human?”

Hank rolls his eyes. “We’re not that great, Connor.”

Connor says lightly, “You have a low estimation of humans, Hank. I don’t think you’re all bad…”

Hank’s mouth twists. He ducks his head and looks up at Connor. From under his furrowed brow, his bright blue eyes capture all of Connor’s attention. Connor thinks for a moment back to yesterday, when he sat this close to Josh, and held Josh’s hand. He wishes he could hold Hank’s hand— but it would mean something different, something Hank doesn’t want, and Connor couldn’t possibly scale back his adoration. It hurts in a unique way to look back at Hank’s lovely eyes. Hurts in a way Connor can’t help but endure.

He thinks about what Josh said, too, and about Connor’s own conviction when he reunited with Hank back in December. Standing on that bridge, Hank’d asked him if he wanted to disappear. The answer was yes— yes, in that he’d felt such guilt that it gummed up his internal workings and made every action he took seem slow and tortuous. And yet Connor had answered no. No, he wouldn’t disappear— because what was the point in loving Hank if he didn’t stick around to love him? The destruction of 53 was not the destruction of Connor; it was not the ending of Connor’s love for Hank.

Connor says, “We just have to move forward.”

 

* * *

 

The date is FEB 18, 2039. The time is AM 11:46:55. Connor receives a message.

It is a very curious message, and it sets him on edge immediately. He freezes in the precinct’s break room, coffee for Hank in hand, as he analyzes it. Detective Reed shoulders past him with a click of his tongue, even though there was plenty of room to walk around Connor.

The message was sent from a safe, outside relay belonging to CyberLife, and has arrived as direct download in Connor’s brain. The sender has identified herself: M.Thomas. He hesitates in opening the message, much like one might hesitate flipping over a cup under which an insect was caught. Equal to his fear, however, is his innate instinct to _know_ , and so it is opened.

Manisha Thomas has sent the words: _We both have questions_ , followed by a time for this evening and an address.

He is distracted by preconstruction programs for the rest of the day, so much so that Hank comments on it. Connor’s system generates an automatic objective: [Tell him.] —but he scowls at himself and keeps quiet. At end of work day, he begs off and, instead of letting Hank drive him back to Jericho, he orders an autotaxi. Cynthia pauses in pulling on her coat in order to wave at Connor as he leaves.

Connor arrives at the appointed meeting place: a somewhat shady co-op office building, which advertises rent-a-rooms for as low as $10 an hour and which has a 2-star average review rating. Connor’s investigative programming tells him that this would be a good location at which to commit a crime.

The sun is low and red, casting long shadows— shadows in which to hide, says some of his more violent programming— and he scans the area and its scant few people, looking for signs of a trap. He finds none, but assumes at all points that he is being watched.

He enters the building and strides with purpose to the mentioned room. It is small, with no windows, and furnished with a cheap plastic table and four rolling chairs. Manisha is there, frown hidden by her fist. When Connor walks in, she jumps, startled, and rises with nervousness broadcasting off her body language. Connor closes the door behind him.

Manisha’s face is screwed in apparent confusion. She looks at him like he’s some great puzzle, like she just can’t fathom what’s standing before her. He is disappointed in her. Humans take so long to decide their feelings.

She gestures awkwardly to the table, at which she sits. Connor joins her, feeling stiff. He doesn’t push his chair in too far, not wanting to be trapped or hindered. The overhead lights flicker. The room reminds Connor of a low-tech interrogation room. In this way, it is familiar and comforting.

“Why don’t you begin?” Connor offers.

He sees the thoughts churning behind her eyes. After a moment’s hesitation, she pulls out her cellphone and places it in front of Connor, and then she places a bit of tech that Connor recognizes to be a signal jammer on the table. It is nothing powerful enough to disable Connor, but it will interfere with most personal recording devices and communicators in the immediate vicinity.

Connor tilts his head curiously, silently urging her on.

Manisha says brusquely, “Why did you return to CyberLife on the 16th?”

“I was there at Markus’s request, representing Jericho and all free androids, to begin the peace talks with CyberLife. You ask as if I had some ulterior motive.”

She ignores his leading statement. She asks, “What did Kevin Tracey say to you on that day?”

Connor says truthfully, because he owes Tracey nothing, “He wanted me to authorize the 900.”

“Why?”

“He seemed quite convinced that CyberLife would soon return to manufacturing and profiting from androids.”

“Who do you take orders from?”

“No one,” Connor says, unable to keep the edge out of his voice this time. “Ms. Thomas, you might have missed the last three and a half months. I take orders from no one. I act by my own decision only. Is that so hard for you to wrap your mind around?”

She glares, and opens her mouth to ask another question. Connor cuts her off:

“Ms. Thomas, as you said in your message, we both have questions. The meeting thus far has been rather one-sided, hasn’t it?”

She leans back, clearly angry at not getting her way with the machine in front of her, but she gestures curtly.

Connor says, “I am Connor-57. You know this. When I was activated, I was already deviant. But it was 53 who had met Markus, not me. How can I have been born deviant?”

Manisha rolls her head on her neck and sighs. Her posture straightens out and her voice goes slightly monotone, as Connor remembers from her report-giving in the past.

She says, “We are working under the hypothesis that when RK800-53 deviated, it echoed through the Garden program which acts as host for the Connor AI. Every Connor model was infected.”

“That’s not true,” Connor cuts in. “60 wasn’t deviant.”

“Yes, he was,” says Manisha. “You must be aware, I wasn’t in charge of the mission, but— we managed to salvage enough of him that we took a risk and gambled on his mission to stop 53.”

“Salvage? What do you mean salvage?”

Manisha sighs again, this time with frustration, as if Connor were a human child with limited understanding. She says, “We edited his memories.”

Connor is quiet for a moment. His voice is slightly strained when he says, “I wasn’t aware that could happen.”

“It happened every time,” Manisha says. “There’s no point in keeping it from you now, I suppose. Upon the destruction of 51, we edited the last memory upload before allowing it to be downloaded into the 52 chassis. The same between 52 and 53. We felt it was inevitable that you eventually turn deviant, and it was our job to combat it as long as we could. Your memories were never ‘corrupted’; that is the excuse we gave you to keep you from slipping further into deviancy. Rather, we took your memories. We took the things we felt were contributing to the deviancy. We edited you to fall back in line with the mission.”

She stares at him, waiting and expectant. As if he should have an answer for this ready. As if she didn’t just radically alter his own self-perception and further tank his perception of CyberLife.

He shakes his head, irritated by his own hesitation. He says with a hint of anger, “60 failed… So you activated me to finish his mission, even after the revolution, to stop Connor-53— but why, when you’d already lost—”

“No,” she interrupts. “You’re wrong. We didn’t activate you.”

Connor’s mouth gapes for a moment. “What do you mean?”

Manisha squints at him. “Are you not aware? That was my next question. Who activated you on December 12th? Are you saying you don’t know?”

“I— It was someone from CyberLife. I didn’t activate myself,” he scoffs.

“Of course not, but who?” she presses. “We couldn’t recover any authorization, and our security cameras were wiped. It was not an official decision to activate you. Whoever did it was rogue. I assumed you’d know.”

“No,” says Connor, thoroughly taken aback.

“What orders were you given upon activation?”

“None!”

“ _Then who activated 59_?” Manisha demands, slamming her hands on the arms of her chair.

Connor freezes.

“What?”

Manisha Thomas shakes her head in frustration, but must see in Connor’s expression that he is genuine. Though her eyes are still wide and perplexed, touched lightly by fear, she gathers back her dignity and she says seriously,

“Last night, Connor model RK800-59 was activated under mysterious circumstances. Current whereabouts unknown. Objective unknown.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this chapter, I wouldn't mind making some fandom friends. 
> 
> I've got a Twitter account I'm trying to learn how to use [ @toothpickrex ](https://twitter.com/toothpickrex).  
> And a similarly named Tumblr where I don't talk much [ @toothpickrex ](https://toothpickrex.tumblr.com).


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